


Wish I Wish Tonight

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (just a lot of weed), (sort of), Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Summer Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:34:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it. You have starlight in your smile, is what he wants to say, you did when you were sixteen and you still do. You’re starlight and I didn’t know how to look up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go! Thanks to everyone for putting up with my 'this will totally be out in a week' protestations. I got it up before summer is over, what do you want? 
> 
> This fic is finished; I'll be posting it every other day. It is 5 chapters and an epilogue.
> 
> Thanks to my lovely beta Celia for putting up with like three drafts, and to Denice for letting me flail at her. Don't own the boys, don't know anything, they should stop walking around shirtless next to pools if they wanted me not to write about them.

“It’s just so stupid!” Harry says, possibly louder than he meant. On the beach lounger next to him, Liam lets out a long exhale that is probably less indicative of his actual interest than of his wish for Harry to shut up, but Harry can’t really bring himself to care. It’s summer break, the sun is out, he’s gotten his work done for the day, he’s a beer and a half down even though it’s only three, he keeps getting appreciative looks from where he’s lounging all over the pool chair. He is, mostly, at peace with the world. This is what summer’s supposed to be.

It’s because of the ‘mostly’ that he continues. “I mean, who wears jeans to a pool? Did he just come here to swan around shirtless all day?”

Liam makes another one of those noises. Harry is too busy glaring—and it is glaring, it’s not, like, ogling or anything, not at all, or maybe only a little bit—across the pool to notice. He hadn’t thought coming home for the summer after his third year of college would be this difficult. It was supposed to be relaxing. It had been relaxing. Until Zayn Malik had to come back to town and take his shirt off.

“Is he just trying to prove to us all he got hot?” Harry goes on, “Because it worked.” He leans back in his chair and takes a sulky sip of his beer. If Zayn were looking, he might wrap his lips around the bottle, hollow out his cheeks and see what Zayn’s reaction was, see if he still—but Zayn isn’t, so he doesn’t bother putting the effort in. “Because I think he managed it.”

He did to Harry, at least. It had been bad enough last week when Harry had just caught sight of Zayn for the first time since graduation, coming out of the bookstore in a simple t-shirt and jeans that had still had Harry’s breath catching. But then he had to come to the pool where Harry was trying to relax and then he had to fucking strip off his shirt. When did he even get so built? In high school, he had barely managed weedy, with his cheeks still a bit chubby with baby fat. He had been buttoned up shirts and big glasses and bigger eyes, cute before anything else. Not this. When had he gotten all these muscles and tattoos and tan and—everything?

“You know,” Liam says at last, when Harry’s been pouting loudly enough to annoy even him, “You could go over there and talk to him.”

“I’m not going to do that.” A pause, then, because Harry’s not actually a bad person, “I mean, we never even really talked at school.”

“You had that project together, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry replies, a little shortly. The Project, junior year. Random partner assignments, obviously, because why else would Harry, who was, if not a jock, popular and friends with everyone and the _it_ guy of the school, be partners with the art geek? Harry’s never talked about that project much to anyone, not the hours they had spent in the library, or the way Zayn had rolled his eyes and scoffed at Harry’s stories, or how he had giggled at Harry’s non-funny jokes, or how he chewed on his lip when he was trying not to say something or how when Harry made him smile he just wanted to squirm and beam. Or how, nearly the last day, they had been sitting next to each other and Zayn had slowly but deliberately reached out and put his hand on Harry thigh. Harry had frozen, for a second, then shaken his head, because Zayn was lovely but he was Harry Styles and male art geeks would ruin everything. Zayn had moved his hand, and they carried on. They hadn’t talked after that. Zayn hadn’t looked at him again, Harry’s certain of it. He’s definitely not looking at him now.

“So,” Liam says, jolting Harry out of his thought, “You can talk to him now. See what he’s been up to.”

Harry looks across the pool again. Zayn’s standing up and stretching, elongating his spine and making his jeans slip even lower on his hips, so the line of his briefs show clearly. Fuck. Harry really wants to lick him. And looking around, Harry is pretty sure he is not the only one thinking that. “He won’t want to talk to me,” Harry says, certainly.

Harry doesn’t have to look at Liam (which is good, because he’s finding looking away from Zayn to be difficult. If he were wearing his usual skinny jeans right now this would be a problem) to know he rolls his eyes. “Harry, you have literally nothing to lose. Just talk to him or shut up.”

Zayn says something to one of his friends on the chair next to him, swats playfully at his blonde hair, then jerks his head towards the gate. He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and heads in that direction, giving the pool a wide berth. He hadn’t known how to swim, Harry remembers out of nowhere, Zayn had told him that, that he was sort of deathly afraid of water. Harry hadn’t believed him, because by that point he had been pretty sure Zayn wasn’t afraid of anything, didn’t even care about how people looked at him or made fun of him or anything. He doesn’t care now, either, obviously, but no one’s making fun, even if everyone’s looking.

“You know,” Harry says, decisively. He finishes his beer, and swings to his feet. He’s been sitting in the sun long enough that he’s a little unsteady on his feet, but not much. “I think I will.”

“Good,” is Liam’s only response, as he closes his eyes. Liam’s a good friend despite himself.

Harry sets off across the pool area, trying not to make it seem quite so much like he’s on a mission. He says hi to the people he hasn’t seen in a while, chats with friends, preens a little under admiring gazes. He might not be bloody Zayn Malik, but he knows he looks good in his black board shorts, with his hair loose about his ears and his tattoos littering his body. More than one set of eyes follows the feathers down, which is exactly what they were supposed to do.

But he is on a mission, and it doesn’t take him that long to get to the gate by the pool house Zayn disappeared out of. He takes a moment to shake out his hair, then ducks behind the house as well.

Zayn’s leaning against the wall, his skin gold with the sun and the contrast to the grey cement, his tattoos stark and black against it. His head is tilted upwards, his eyes are closed, and he’s got a cigarette between his lips. Harry’s breath actually stops in his throat. If he were at all artistic, he’d want to paint this.

As he’s not, “Hey,” he says.

Zayn’s eyes open. If Harry wanted a reaction—and he did, a bit—he doesn’t get one. “Hey,” Zayn says. He brings his fingers up to the cigarette, pulls it out of his mouth, and blows a puff of smoke into the air. His cheeks hollow under those sharp-cut cheekbones he’d had even as a teenager. Harry’s mouth goes dry.

“How’ve you been?” Harry asks with a grin. If Zayn’s not going to talk about—about back then—then he doesn’t have to either. Makes it easier. “You weren’t back last summer.”

Zayn shakes his head. “Nah. Studying abroad. Italy,” he replies, when Harry makes an inquiring noise. “Gotta go with the classics.”

“Right.” Harry totally gets that. Or no, he doesn’t at all, but he could. “So you’re still doing art, then?”

It’s not his smoothest move, but Zayn snorts out a laugh. “Yeah. More or less.” He takes another drag. This would be a lot easier if he was less hot or contributing more to the conversation.

There’s another beat of silence. Harry leans against the wall next to Zayn. Then, when it’s still quiet, except for the shrieking of the people in the pool, he edges closer, so their bare shoulders brush on the wall. Zayn’s skin looks warm, and edible, and Harry wants to trace every line of black that’s grown since high school, wants to see what Zayn chose to ink his skin with. He’d said something about having a tattoo once then, but Harry thinks he might have repressed that in self-defense. He’s always liked tattoos on a man.

But he has to somehow introduce the topic of possibly revisiting the invitation put on the table four years ago, and he thinks an offhand ‘I want to lick every inch of your skin’ might not fly so well. Instead, because let it never be said Harry doesn’t know how to adapt his plans, “So seeing you, I was thinking—about that time junior year—”

“Forget about it.” Zayn shrugs. His muscles rolls smoothly under his skin with the motion.

“No, but—”

“But you were Harry Styles and I was a guy.” Zayn shrugs again, takes another drag. “Water on the bridge, babe. You don’t have to apologize or whatever.”

“Oh.” Harry swallows. He hadn’t exactly been meaning to apologize, more ask if the invitation was still open, but now he kinda thinks he should. Even though he’d had his reasons. Still, he hadn’t wanted to have traumatized Zayn or anything, but it would have been nice for him to regret it, or something. Be a little mournful. “Right.”

Zayn takes another drag, then stubs out the butt against the wall. “So why’d you come out here?” he asks.

Harry perks up. This is his opening. This is—

“Hey, Zaynie!” A guy Harry hasn’t seen before pokes his head around the building. He doesn’t falter at all when he sees Harry, just smirks a bit and fixes a bright blue gaze on Zayn. “Me and Ni are gonna—” he brings his forefinger and thumb together, then to his lips. “You in?”

“Is that a question?” Zayn retorts, grinning. Harry’d forgotten how bright his smile could be. “Going to the Machine?”

“Yeah.” The other boy’s loose brown hair bounces as he nods.

“Awesome.” Zayn pauses, then turns to Harry. “Want to come?”

Harry hesitates for a second. He probably shouldn’t abandon Liam. He doesn’t really smoke, doesn’t have the lungs for it. But Zayn is really hot, and Harry really should apologize or something, or something. “Sure!” Liam can fend for himself.

Harry shoots him a quick text anyway as he follows Zayn and his friend—Louis, a mate from college, Zayn explains, as Louis just gave him a cool look when Zayn had introduced him—to a van painted in lurid orange and green parked a few blocks away.

Harry pauses outside of it. “Is that—”

“The Mystery Machine?” Zayn’s lips twitch, but Harry thinks he looks secretly proud. He’d always been into that kind of stuff, had taken a lot of flack for it back then. “Yep.”

“Wow.”

“Awful, isn’t it?” Zayn asks, chuckling. “But Lou had a dream—”

“Like you didn’t want it just as bad—”

“Wouldn’t let up—”

“Begged me for it, on his knees—”

Harry’s eyes glaze over a bit at that, at the image of Zayn on his knees. He thinks it might be visible, or the way he shifts in his board shorts is, because Louis gives him a knowing look and a smile that isn’t really very nice.

“You lot coming in?” The back doors open, and a blonde head pops out. Like Louis, he doesn’t question Harry’s presence as he ushers them in, though he offers him a wide grin and a one-armed hug as he tugs him into the van.

The back of the van is very Deadhead, with some beanbags and a shag rug, and the reek of weed. Harry debates between choosing the bean bag closest to Zayn or the one where he can look at him best, and opts for closest, so he folds himself into it as Louis rolls and Zayn pats his pockets for a lighter. They hand both to Niall with great ceremony, who takes the first hit, then passes it to Louis, who takes his own hit before handing it off. It looks like a ritual, but it doesn’t seem to disturb them when Zayn hands the joint to Harry, their fingers brushing as they do the exchange. Had it felt this much like a jolt of electricity in high school?

It doesn’t take long before they’re all pretty high, or at least Harry is, giggling at all of Louis’s stories and Niall’s jokes. Zayn still doesn’t say much, but what he does say is all snarky and funny and he is so pretty, with fingers that should really touch Harry and eyelashes that go on for years, and might have stars caught in them. Harry reaches out to touch, but gets the joint handed to him instead.

He tries for another drag, but starts coughing during the exhale.

“Shit,” Niall says, watching him hack. “Don’t hack up a lung, mate.”

“Blood takes forever to get out of the carpet,” Zayn agrees, which sets Louis cackling.

Harry catches his breath enough to scowl. “My lungs aren’t—smokey,” he explains, and gets three intelligent nods.

“You know what would fix that?” Louis asks, leaning forward. Harry thinks he might be worried at the look in his eyes. “Shotgunning.”

Niall snorts again, as does Zayn, but Harry gives Louis a wide grin. The man is brilliant. “Yes!” he agrees. “Yes, I should do that.”

“Zaynie? Care to do the honors?” Louis asks. Zayn gives him a look Harry can’t understand, but he takes the blunt back from Harry. This is brilliant, Harry decides. This is right on plan. Except they’re too far away. Harry pouts.

“You should come over here,” he says, and Niall laughs.

“Bossy, innit he?”

“It’s the only way to get our Zaynie, sometimes.” Louis winks. Zayn shoots him the middle finger. But none of that has resolved the basic problem of Zayn being too far away, so Harry, because he is good at making plans, gets up to go straddle Zayn, planting a knee on either side of his hips. Zayn even looks hot from this angle. Zayn would probably look hot from all the angles, Harry thinks, and wants to find out.

He holds the blunt out to Zayn, who takes it, then inhales for a long time, his cheeks puffing out. Harry waits a beat for him to nod, then leans forward, opens his mouth. Zayn’s fingers tangle in the hair behind his head as he holds his head steady, and their lips touch like fireworks. Harry breathes in and in and in until he’s got all of Zayn’s breath and he sits back. Zayn’s head tilts back, revealing a long stretch of neck with all these veins.

“Think they know we’re here?” Louis asks, in a stage whisper.

“Fuck off,” Zayn retorts.

“Or stay.” Harry looks down at Zayn. There’s not a bit of fat to spare on him. There never was, really, but now scrawny has turned to muscle. It’s a whole different landscape then the one Harry had stolen looks at back then. “I’m not bothered.”

“Clearly,” Louis says, but Harry doesn’t bother answering. Zayn’s just sitting there, all golden in the dim light of the van, like he’s actually shining, and his lips are as pink as they were when they were sixteen, except now they’re framed with all this stubble that just makes them look pinker and would probably make Harry’s skin burn for days after if it was rubbed against him properly. So Harry leans down, sinks his hands into the cloth on either side of Zayn’s head, and gets his lips on Zayn’s properly.

There’s a moment when Zayn, probably too high to register things fully, doesn’t move. But then he arches up and his hands get into Harry’s hair to tug him closer.

“Wow, he really isn’t bothered,” Harry hears vaguely, but he is busy, because Zayn tastes like weed and summer and desire and their bare skin is rubbing against each other. He rolls his hips and Zayn makes a groaning noise into his mouth Harry wants to hear forever.

“Think we should leave?”

“Think they’d notice if we didn’t?”

Harry wouldn’t. Harry doesn’t care about anything other than kissing Zayn forever, except maybe rolling them over somehow so he doesn’t have to hold himself up and can touch everywhere, trace all the muscles he saw before and the long line of Zayn’s spine and the golden skin and the everything.

They kiss and kiss and kiss until Harry’s dizzy with it, until it’s ringing in his head as much as the weed and he can’t even think for it, until Zayn’s hands are limp in Harry’s hair and Harry can pull away a little to press more kisses into Zayn’s jaw, then his neck, all the muscles and veins and pretty things that make him up. His teeth scrape over the skin so Zayn shivers beneath him, and it’s the best thing he’s ever felt.

“Fuck, but you’re hot,” he mutters in between kisses, presses the words into Zayn’s skin, heads downwards so he can get rid of this burning he’s felt since he saw Zayn again or maybe just since he saw Zayn period and—

And then Zayn pulls away, tugging his head up gently but firmly. “Glad I’m hot enough for you now,” he says, and Harry whines before he looks at Zayn’s face, but he’s not smiling anymore, is just looking at Harry.

“What? Come on.” Harry reaches for Zayn again. But Zayn shakes his head, and wriggles like he’d like Harry to move. Harry doesn’t, because. Well. He likes it where he is. Where he can look down at Zayn and feel him beneath his thighs.

“No.” Zayn smiles a little at that, something knowing in it that Harry doesn’t like. “No, Harry.”

“Why not?” Harry wants to scream. Now it’s worse than at the pool, than all those years of idle wondering, because then it was just imagining, and now he knows how Zayn feels. How his laughter tastes. “I want you and you want me and—”

Zayn just raises his eyebrows. “That,” he says, “Was for sixteen year old me. But I’m not having sex with you ‘cause I’m hot enough to make the cut now. I have more self-respect than that.”

“Self-respect is overrated,” Harry mutters, and tries to lean back in, but Zayn’s got a hand between them.

“No,” Zayn repeats. That’s the worst word Harry’s ever heard, really. “I’m not that pathetic anymore.”

“You weren’t pathetic.”

Zayn sighs, and no. Harry remembers how much he smiled, how lovely it had been when he had, and now he’s looking sad again and it’s not right, Harry had never liked it when he looked sad, even if he didn’t always do anything about it because he couldn’t really do what he’d wanted to. “I really was. Just go, kay? Tell the two fuckers waiting outside they can come back in.”

Harry—doesn’t have anything to say to that. What’s he supposed to do, beg? So he crawls off Zayn, still heavy with weed and hot with arousal, and makes his way to the door. When he gets there, he turns for a second. He doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it. You have starlight in your smile, is what he wants to say, you did when you were sixteen and you still do. You’re starlight and I didn’t know how to look up.  

“It wasn’t you,” he says instead, because that sounds less stupid. “I—wasn’t ready.”

“Okay, Harry.” Zayn’s sitting on the beanbag, his legs spread. He looks like a poster for debauchery, shirtless with his hair mussed and his lips kiss-swollen. Harry doesn’t want to look in his eyes. “Whatever you say.”

And there’s nothing Harry can do then but leave, open the door and hop out of the van. Niall and Louis are loitering a ways away, but they come over when Harry lets himself out. Niall takes one look at him and guffaws before he climbs back in, but Louis’s look is sharp and knowing and pleased.

“Karma’s a bitch, huh?” he says, and claps Harry on the shoulder hard enough to hurt. He’s not wrong, so Harry doesn’t reply when he gets into the van as well and slams the door behind him.

\---

The thing is, karma really is a bitch, because now Harry can’t stop thinking about it. Not just how kissing Zayn felt, though that too, the heat and want and feel of his chapped lips, but the fact that Zayn sent him away.

And that wouldn’t be a problem, because Harry’s thought of Zayn off and on for years, wondering idly where he is and how he’s doing, except suddenly Harry is seeing Zayn everywhere too. At the ice cream parlor, his tongue flicking out to lick a cone so Harry has to look away so he won’t get embarrassingly hard in his pants. Walking down the street with Louis and Niall, his head tilted back in a laugh, his arm wrapped around Louis. At the pool again, still bloody shirtless. In the café where Harry is slogging through his books for the requisite hours, a sketchbook tucked under his arm and his eyes going dark and sensual with the first sip of coffee.

“Maybe it really was revenge,” he says. Liam makes an agreeing sound from the bed and flips the page of his comic book. Sometimes, Harry thinks Liam doesn’t get how serious his problems are. “Maybe he was walking around without a shirt on just so he could reel me in then reject me.”

“Think so?” Liam hums, “That’s cold.”

Harry spins on his feet so he can pace the other way. His room is neat still from the months spent away at college, so it’s fairly easy to pace. “Cold,” he agrees. But, “No. Probably not.” He can still see Zayn’s gaze as he sent him away, and it hadn’t been satisfied or vengeful or anything. It had been sad more than not.

And anyway, Zayn didn’t have that in him. Harry could remember Zayn giggling over a dirty doodle in a textbook, smiling at his sisters. He hadn’t really known Zayn, he thinks, but he had _known_ him, and he wasn’t spiteful like that. Not even now that he had all those tattoos and earrings and looked like a poster boy for rebellion.

But what if he’s changed? Harry’s changed since he was sixteen, Zayn could have too. Maybe Harry did traumatize him. And he had invited him into that van, and he couldn’t have not noticed how Harry was looking at him, unless everyone looked at him that way and he hadn’t even considered it, and Harry’s summer was not supposed to have been this confusing.

He groans, and throws himself onto the bed, which also results in landing on top of Liam. Liam, because he is a good friend, just shifts around to make room. “Look,” Liam says, ruffling Harry’s hair companionably. “You could just ask him.”

Harry blinks. “Ask him?”

“You know, with the talking?” Harry wrinkles his nose at Liam, who sticks his tongue out back. “Just ask him what it was.”

“Why would he tell me?” Harry pauses, thinks about it, then, “What if he lies?”

“Then at least you’ll have some sort of answer,” Liam points out. It’s a good point, really. At least Harry’ll know if he’s supposed to be mad at Zayn or at himself or if he can act on the burning that goes through him every time he catches a glimpse of Zayn. Preferably before he goes insane with it.

Liam must know he’s thinking about it, because he nudges him companionably with his hip. “Go. Talk to him.”

“Now?” Liam gives him one of his ‘are you really being this silly?’ looks, which Harry thinks is pretty rich from someone who’s been staring at his phone all summer debating if how long he can wait before he texts Sophia. “I don’t know where he is.”

“He’s at the bookstore,” Liam replies absently. Harry rolls over to stare at him. He hadn’t even known Liam was aware the bookstore existed, let alone that people could go in it. Liam has the grace to flush. “What? Niall tweeted about him getting a job there.”

“You follow Niall?”

“Yeah, he’s a great laugh. Zayn retweeted some of his things and they were hysterical so I started following him—”

“You follow Zayn?” Harry’s whole world is somehow crashing down.

“I follow most of our old classmates,” Liam explains with a shrug, like it’s not a big deal. Which it isn’t, anymore. But still. Harry feels like he should have known about this. And known that Zayn had a twitter because he should follow him, he’ll do that soon. “Anyway, are you going?”

“Yeah.” Harry hops out of the bed, looks at himself in the mirror, then carefully selects a straw hat to put on over his hair, because he doesn’t want to burn or anything, and he thinks it makes him look dashing. “How do I look?”

“Like an insane farmer.”

“Great.” Harry makes a face at Liam through the mirror, then leaves him to his comics, only stopping on his way out to let his mum know he’s leaving if anyone asks and that he’s done his work for today.

The bookstore is within walking distance of Harry’s house, on the edges of the main street. It’s a cute little place, the kind of store Harry hadn’t valued as a kid because it hadn’t had blockbuster books but now he keeps meaning to go into to find something really weird and random. When Harry does his first walk past, he doesn’t see Zayn, but when he does another pass to make sure, Zayn’s in the alley next door, talking with Louis with a cigarette in between his lips.

Okay. Harry can do this. He approached Zayn once, he can do it again. So he steels himself against the inevitable laughter and trots over, offering them both a wide smile. “Hey,” he says in greeting, as he gets within non-yelling earshot.

Zayn nods with a bit of a smile, but Louis crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes. “What do you want?” he demands.

Harry doesn’t really see how he has anything to do with this, so he ignores him and turns to Zayn. “Can we talk, for a sec?”

“Sure,” Zayn drops his cigarette and rubs it out with his foot.

“Zayn—”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Chill, Lou. It’s fine.” He looks back at Harry. “But not for long, I’ve only got ten more minutes.”

“Like Mrs. Grady would care,” Harry retorts. He was never in the bookstore much, but once he and Zayn had come in for a book and Zayn had talked to the bookstore owner like they were friends. It had desperately impressed Harry, the way he wasn’t trying to make her like him, how he was so casual about it even though she was authority. And it had made Harry uncomfortable too, in a way he hadn’t known how to identify, to see Zayn smiling and joking with the matronly woman, his shoulders relaxed and grin quick like it wasn’t at school, like he hadn’t seen it except for with Harry.

“Yeah, still.” Zayn shrugs. “Tommo, give us a sec?”

“Zayn.”

“I’ll take you for ice cream after work.”

“I’m not seven or Niall, Zayn. That won’t work”

“We’ll read the new Spiderman we just got in after.”

Louis’s lips twitch into a reluctant smile. “Fine. Ten minutes.”

“He’s not going to murder me,” Zayn yells at his back as Louis opens the backdoor to the store and disappears inside with a final,

“You don’t know that!” thrown back at them.

Harry looks after him. That seemed…unduly mad. “Is he your boyfriend?” he asks. That would make sense about why he was angry with Harry and why he didn’t want them alone now, though less about why he had proposed Harry shotgunning with Zayn in the first place.

“Lou? No. He’s just protective.” His lips press together as he thinks. “And probably wanted me to bribe him, come to think of it.” He pulls his phone out, types out a text, then slips his phone back into his pocket. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“The other day—”

Zayn holds up a hand, pulls his phone out of his pocket again to check it, then gives it a wry smile as he flips it so Harry can read Louis’s response, which is just ‘ _mwahahaha never doubt my evil genius_.’ Harry snorts, and Zayn grins conspiratorially at him, and shows him Zayn’s next text.

 _Never said when I’d show you the comic_.

It gets a laugh out of Harry. “That’s mean,” he points out.

Zayn shrugs unrepentantly. “Trust me, he deserves it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know, but by the end of the day I will.” Harry can’t help but smile at the mischief in Zayn’s gaze. Then it fades a bit, and he shoots a glance at Harry. “Sorry again. What did you want?”

Harry swallows. “About the other day…” Zayn’s face is closing off, the smile disappearing until he’s all enigmatic again. “Did you do that just for, like, revenge?”

“Revenge?” Zayn snorts, and runs a hand through his hair. It’s loose today, so his face looks softer, more like the boy Harry had known. “For what?”

“For, like, when we were kids.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I dunno, but you were the one who invited me!” Harry resists the urge to stomp, does take a step closer. He can almost feel the heat from Zayn’s body, or maybe he’s just imagining it because he knows what it feels like. “Why was that?”

Zayn sighs, and edges a little to the right so he’s farther away from Harry. “I asked you to come with us because I thought you were a cool guy when we were sixteen and you’re probably a cool guy now. No ulterior motives, Harry. They’re exhausting.” He glances upward for a second, then adds, “Unless it’s pranking Louis, then they’re necessary.”

Harry narrows his eyes, tries to read the truth of it on Zayn’s face, but it’s hard when he keeps on getting distracted by how the light catches in Zayn’s eyelashes. “So this isn’t a secret revenge plot?”

“Has someone finally managed to get you into superheroes?” Zayn retorts, and Harry bites his lip and grins at that, because Zayn had tried to explain Spiderman once, and it hadn’t worked even if Harry had loved to watch him talk about it, his eyes bright with excitement. “Nah, though. I’m no supervillain.”

“Would you know if you were?” Harry asks, and Zayn chuckles.

“I promise I’ll let the police know if I start cackling maniacally or have any urges to build doomsday devices,” he says, crossing his heart. “Promise.”

“Pinky swear?”

Another laugh, but Zayn obediently holds out his pinky finger for Harry to link to his. Harry’s not high, is completely sober, but he still thinks he can feel fireworks where their fingers brush.

“So.” Zayn drops his hand, so Harry has to let go of him. “We were gonna go to the movies tonight—Louis and Niall and I—then probably hang out in the Mystery Machine or whatever. You want to come? And Liam, or whoever?”

“Sure!” Harry says it almost before Zayn’s finished talking. Spending time with Zayn will probably mean he will stop going insane, right? And he’s already finished his studying for today, more or less.

“Great.” Zayn rolls his head to stretch it. “I should go back in. Good talking to you, Harry.”

“You too.” Harry watches him go, watches how his broad shoulders roll, how his t-shirt falls around his narrow waist, how a hint of a tattoo peeks out above the collar. He wants to know how it would feel beneath his hands.

\---

From a certain point of view, Harry guesses, the movie goes great. He’s not horribly into it—there are more explosions and fewer grand themes than he’d like—but it’s amusing, and everyone else seems to like it. Even from a person away (Louis had very pointedly gotten between Zayn and Harry when they went to sit down) Harry can hear Zayn’s gulps and breathy exhales, can see his eyes widen and the lips twitching, can take in his laughter when they make jokes. He’s more fun to watch than the movie, really, as good-looking as any of the actor.

Then after they pile into the van. It’s a tight fit, with all of them, but Zayn gives up his beanbag to Liam and sits comfortably on Louis’s lap like he does it all the time. Harry does not at all pout about that, staring down at his knees until Liam pokes him with a foot.

“Why’re we here again?” he asks, quietly, giving the other three a sidelong look as Louis reaches around Zayn to roll.

Harry shoots them a glance too. Zayn seems to have gotten involved in some sort of tickle war where he and Niall try to distract Louis from rolling so their laughter and muffled curses fill the van, and Zayn’s giggling like he’s having the time of his life.

“Because new friends are always good,” he tells Liam. Liam rolls his eyes.

“Friends?”

Louis’s managed to wrestle himself free and has leapt back onto Zayn this time, attacking with a ferocity that almost scares Harry a little if Zayn wasn’t laughing hysterically and fighting back. Had he been like this in high school, too? This wasn’t what Harry’s friends had been like, then. “Friends.” Harry says, as Zayn finally pinches at Louis’s nipple and Louis yelps and shoves him away.

“Go away, I don’t want you anymore,” Louis snaps, even if he’s got a merry glint in his eyes.

Zayn gives him big, sad eyes, then slides across the room to collapse next to Harry, his head leaning against Harry’s knee. “Well, Harry still wants me,” he retorts, then looks up at Harry. “Right?”

Harry’s mouth is dry. He’s not sure if this is Zayn flirting or Zayn being playful or Zayn torturing him, looking up at him through his eyelashes with big hazel eyes. “Right,” he says, and Zayn turns back to Louis with his tongue stuck out.

“See?”

“Just ‘cause he’s pretty doesn’t mean you have to agree with him,” Louis informs Harry, a little sharply.

Niall snorts. “Like you’ve never taken advantage of it.”

“Never said I didn’t, did I?” Louis finally finishes rolling the joint. Zayn digs in his pocket and tosses a lighter across the van. Louis misses, but manages to make it look like he meant for it to drop to the floor next to him with the same sort of scorn as a cat. He lights it, then hands it to Niall, who takes the first hit, then passes it back.

Harry can see Liam shifting next to him—he’s never really approved of weed—but he’s probably feeling too awkward to say anything, as Louis passes the joint to Harry, who takes his hit then reaches down to hand it to Zayn.

Zayn inhales, his cheeks hollowing, then reaches over to hand it to Liam. Liam shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

Zayn shrugs, ready to pass it back to Niall, but Louis gives Liam a hard look. “Really?”

“I don’t—”

“You all too good for us?” Louis cuts him off.

“No, I—”

“If you’re so cool, you can just go.” Liam’s jaw sets, which is a sure precursor to one of his explosions, and he opens his mouth to interject something when Zayn cuts in.

“Let it go, Lou. Didn’t you ever listen to the peer pressure lectures?”

For a second, Louis tenses, but then he relaxes. “Was too busy smoking,” he replies, and Niall laughs, and just like that the tension’s gone. Louis turns to Liam. “Sorry, mate. Your body is your temple, and all that. Whatever you want.”

Liam still looks unsure, but he’s relaxed too, and he offers Louis a tentative smile. “I just don’t want to mess up my lungs,” he explains.

“Athlete?” Niall asks, “What d’ya play?”

“Rugby,” Liam tells him. Louis snorts. Zayn throws something that turns out to be a pack of cigarettes at him.

“Stop being a snob, Lou.”

“Soccer is the best sport and no one will tell me otherwise.”

“But!” Liam jumps in, leaning forward, and then they’re in some incomprehensible argument about sports and scoring and rules and things Harry really doesn’t understand or care to, as Niall watches and sometimes inserts comments that make both of them laugh.

Zayn doesn’t contribute either, just leans back into the beanbag so his arm is brushing against Harry’s calf, and his head is inches from Harry’s hand. If Harry wanted, he could get a hand in that hair again, could pull him up by it and see if Zayn still tastes the same.

“It’s nice, yeah?” Zayn says lazily, letting out a long puff of smoke.

“What is?”

“This. Hanging out.” Zayn’s voice is coming slowly now, like he had before when he was high. How long has he had the joint for? Harry’s not sure. But last time Zayn got high he got to kiss him, so he’s not exactly looking for it back. “High school’s just so stupid, y’know?”

“It is?”

“Yeah. Like, we couldn’t do this, then. And now we can. And it’s not like anything’s changed.”

I have, Harry wants to say. I have, and now I’m not scared, and I want to kiss you until you forget I ever said no.

“Like,” Zayn goes on. His head’s tilted back, his eyes closed. His neck is a long golden arch leading down to sharp collarbones. “We can be friends now, yeah?”

Friends. Harry could grow to hate that word. “Yeah, friends,” he says, and steals the joint back from Zayn.

\---

Harry stumbles back into the house at around midnight, desperately hungry because they had dropped him off on the way to get munchies, Niall tugging at Louis’s sleeve and Zayn laughing as he slung his arms around both of them. So instead of going right to bed, which he probably should have, he tiptoes into the kitchen, and pulls open the refrigerator door.

“You didn’t say you were going to be back late.”

He nearly has a heart attack, probably would if the weed wasn’t enough to keep him calm. He still spins like a startled cat, to see his mother in the doorway, a carton of Ben & Jerry’s in one hand and a spoon in the other. She raises her eyebrows at his shock.

“Sorry!” Harry yelps. “I ended up going out with some friends.”

“Who?”

“Liam. And some other people, new friends.” He’s babbling, but he needs to get upstairs before she smells him.

But she just smiles, her soft smile that Harry loves more than anything. “Sounds like fun.”

“It was! Loads. But now I’m tired. Gonna go to bed, you know?” He smiles his most disarming smile, and edges forward, hoping to avoid her as much as possible. He gets all the way past her, almost to the stairs, and he’s sure he’s home free when,

“Harry Edward Styles,” comes her snap, “Do you smell of pot?”

Shit. “No?” he tries. Then, firmer, because he can convince anyone of anything, always has, “No,” he says again, “Maybe some people at the theater were smoking and it got on me? That’s all I can think of.”

There’s a long beat of silence, as Harry prays she buys it. Then, “Good,” she says. Harry lets out a long exhale. Thank God. He’s not sure she could still ground him, but he knows she’d try. “Because I’ve said it before, that sort of thing will just slow you down, get you unfocused. I know this summer’s supposed to be relaxing, but you’ve still got studying to do, and you should be honing your resume, and—”

“I know, mom.” If he were closer, he’d kiss her on the cheek to distract her, but it’s probably better he doesn’t. She might see his eyes, or something. “I did my chapter for today, I’ll wake up early tomorrow and get another one done then before I go to the pool.”

“Okay.” She comes over to the foot of the stairs, so she can smile up at him. “I know you know. I know you care about this too. Just want to make sure my baby’s all right.”

“I know, mom,” Harry repeats. He does. “I know.”

\---

Harry doesn’t see Zayn the next day, because he has to do his chapter and then he go for a run and hang out with his mom for a while and then he has other friends to see in the evening, because he is a busy person and he does not purposefully avoid the book store or anything. He doesn’t even know if Zayn is working, that would just be silly. He just happens not to go into town or anything, that’s all.

The day after that, though, he goes to the pool alone after he gets fed up with the café. Liam’s off doing something with his sisters, and Harry could have asked someone else, but he’ll meet someone there, he figures, and if he doesn’t he can just sleep by himself. He really, honestly, isn’t planning anything else.

But if, when he gets there, his eyes skate over his usual chair to where Zayn and his friends had been sitting before, well, that’s just because he always makes a sweep of the pool to see who’s there before he settles in.

And they are there, Zayn laid out on a lounger with a book in his hands, in the same mouthwatering state of shirtlessness as he had been last time. On one side of him, Louis and Niall are playing some sort of card game that seems to involve a whole lot of swearing, on the other there’s an open lounger.

It’s his turn to make an overture, really. If they are friends, it’s Harry’s turn to do something, because Zayn invited him into the van then to the movies. And the only way to get something done is to do it yourself, he figures. He can’t look away anyway, from the way the sun sinks into Zayn’s skin and how his arms move whenever he turns a page and how content he looks there in the sun.

So Harry tugs on his tank top so that it’s low enough the feathers peek out at the top, and tries to look like he’s wandering over and not drawn there like a magnet.

Niall and Louis are busy kicking each other in a way Harry thinks is part of the game, but Zayn looks up when Harry’s shadow falls over him. His lips curve into a lazy smile, and Harry has to smile back.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Zayn drawls back, like the heat has made him slow. He has sunglasses on, so Harry can’t see his eyes, but the hand not holding his book is resting on his forehead and Harry wants to taste the skin of his inner arm. He could totally be friends with Zayn if he weren’t so hot, Harry thinks a little annoyed. That always had been the problem.

“Can I sit?” he asks, instead of expressing that.

Zayn nods, gestures with his book. Harry carefully lays out his towel, fusses a little with the corners, then lies down on top of it, stripping his shirt off as he settles. When he emerges from the other side, Zayn’s head is tilted at an angle that makes Harry think he was looking at him, even if his sunglasses obscure his eyes. There’s that, at least, and Harry grins at him as he leans back, folding his arms behind his head in a way he knows makes his arm muscles look great.

“So what are you reading?”

Now Zayn is definitely looking at him. “Cavalier and Clay,” he replies, flipping the cover of his book so Harry can see it. It’s a wild cover, all bright colors and a slash like a comic book.

“What’s it about?”

Zayn’s eyes light up. “It’s about these two guys, cousins, in, like, the thirties, and they make some of the first comics, and definitely the first ones with female leads. And, like, one of them is gay, and—” He cuts himself off with a wry laugh. “Sorry. You probably stopped listening at comics.”

“No!” Well, sort of. But more because he was distracted by the way Zayn’s face lit up, by how he shone with how excited he was. About books. Harry had always wished he was that excited by books. “’s interesting.”

“Really?” Zayn raises an eyebrow.

“Listening to you explain it is,” Harry counters, then tries not to look like he’s watching closely for Zayn’s reaction.

“Flatterer,” Zayn just drawls, and Harry’s not sure if he’s imagining it’s a flirty tone. He probably is. Maybe. It’s hard to read Zayn behind the sunglasses and general Zayn-ness of him. Even now, when he looks open, loose and relaxed in the sun.

“Nope. You always were good at explaining things. You still want to be an English teacher?”

“What?” Zayn lifts up his sunglasses. It’s a sudden shock to Harry’s system, the glimpse of those big, dark-edged eyes. “You remember that?”

Again, Harry thinks ‘I remember everything, I remember every move you made’ probably won’t help him at all. “Yeah. Is that still the plan?”

“Um, no. I mean, I’m doing graphic design now.” He reaches up to rub at his ear, a nervous gesture Harry recognizes even though he couldn’t have told you about it before. “You? Pre-law, right?”

“Yep! Well, poli sci, but that’s where I want to end up.”

“You sound sure.”

“I am.” Harry’s good at being sure. “It’s always been the plan, and then I had this internship at a law office last term, and it was horribly boring and I was just filing and copying and running around and shit, and I just—I loved it. Totally. I want to keep doing it.” Zayn’s smiling at him, and Harry can’t tell if it’s fond or mocking or what. “What?”

“Nothing.” Zayn shakes his head. “Got any plans for the summer?”

“Fucking LSAT prep,” Harry moans, “And all the other resume stuff and shit for law school, you’d think it’d be simpler than applying for colleges, but I’ve got a schedule and everything. And this in between.” He gestures at the pool, and hopes he manages to encompass Zayn in the sweep of his hand. Or at least in the sidelong glance he shoots at him. “Relaxing. I need to get all my sleep in now.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“What? No. Not, like, now now,” Harry stammers, and Zayn’s laughing, and Harry sticks his tongue out. “Mean.”

Zayn’s still laughing, giggling, and it’s the loveliest thing Harry’s ever seen. “But you’re so cute when you’re flustered,” he says, and Harry wrinkles his nose.

“Just for that, I will sleep.”

“I’d never argue with the importance of sleep.”

“It’s true,” Niall inserts. He and Louis’s game must have finished, because they’ve both swung their legs over so they can sit facing Harry and Zayn. “Think he’s got that—what do you call it, Zayn, when you sleep all the time?”

“Narcolepsy,” Zayn answers. “And I don’t.”

“Do too, mate.” Louis reaches over and casually flicks at Zayn’s nipple. Harry’s been very consciously trying not to look that way—at the skin exposed, the muscles of his abs, the way they expand into broad shoulders, the wiry muscle of his chest—but now he can’t help it. Zayn doesn’t even react, just catches Louis’s hand. “You fell asleep every day in that class freshman year, the Comp Sci one—”

“That’s ‘cause it was boring as fuck,” Zayn retorts. He’s still holding onto Louis’s hand, but it looks less like keeping his hand away and more like just holding hands, especially when Louis starts idly fiddling with his fingers. Harry tries not to stare, but Zayn had said they weren’t, but it certainly looks like they are, and no one seems to be noticing. “And I don’t know how you know that, you never even showed up.”

“I did! I showed up for the midterm.”

“Is that supposed to prove me wrong?”

“You both only passed that class because of me,” Niall interjects, and they look away from their argument to beam at Niall.

“Not arguing with that,” Louis agrees, and lets go of Zayn’s hand to pull Niall into a headlock against his chest.

“Don’t know what we’d do without you, Nialler,” Zayn adds, dropping his book so he can lean over and press a smacking kiss to Niall’s cheek.

“Oi, get off you two!” Niall protests, his arms flailing, even as he’s laughing, and Zayn kisses him again before pulling back. Louis holds on a moment longer, then lets go too. When Niall sits back up, he’s distinctly worse for wear, his hair a mess, but he’s still laughing. “Fuckers.”

“You love us really,” Zayn coos.

“’Course I do.” Niall grins. “But if you scare off another chick because they think we’re in a relationship, I’ll be pissed.”

“That’s only happened once.”

“Well, twice.”

“Three times if you count—”

“We can’t count that, it turned her on, she only left because we weren’t—”

“And if you measure that against all the times we’ve wingmanned for you—”

“And dragged your pissed ass home—”

“No, that’s usually you, Lou.”

“Unfair! My ass is always beautiful.”

“Sure it is, but doesn’t make it less wasted.”

Harry looks from the rapid fire dialogue of Zayn and Louis, who seem to have forgotten they were actually protesting something, to Niall. “Are they always like this?”

Niall’s smiling at them, infinitely amused and fond. “Yeah,” he says, “It’s better than telly.”

Harry looks at how Zayn’s smirking, his tongue pressed against the inside of his teeth, and can’t disagree.

\---

Friends. Harry figures it is a normal friend thing to go see friends at work. He’s done it with Liam before, when Liam worked at the ice cream parlor that one summer—though that was also to get free ice cream. And he’s done it at school sometimes, gone to hang out with Nick at the radio station or Chelsea at the library or Jeff at the gym. So it’s a totally normal friend thing for him to wander into the bookstore on his way home from the café when he happens to notice Zayn at the register. Totally normal friend thing that has nothing to do with the thick-rimmed glasses framing Zayn’s eyes or the way his tongue is piking out from between his teeth. It’s not like he has anything else to do for the rest of the day. He can work on his resumes later, his mum doesn’t have to know he’s got a tiny bit off schedule.

Zayn smiles when he walks in, looks up from the book he’s been reading. “Hey!”

“Hi!” Harry grins at the reaction, and comes closer. “Busy?”

“Yeah, it’s hopping in here.” Zayn waves a hand at the empty store. It is one on a Tuesday, Harry supposes; not prime retail hours. “Whatcha up to?”

“Bored,” Harry whines, like he didn’t come in just to see Zayn. Then, no, because that’s pretty creepy and stalkerish and it’s perfectly normal, he amends it. “Wanted to see if you needed amusing.”

Zayn holds up his book. It’s a different one from the one he had at the pool on Sunday. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got this.”

“But aren’t I better than a book?” Harry demands, fluttering his eyelashes like a cartoon character. It gets a chuckle out of Zayn.

“Certainly weirder.”

Harry takes that as permission, and wanders over to lean against the counter. If he arranges himself against it in a very becoming way, so his shirt gaps open at the front and his hair falls over his face, well, that’s a bonus. He has to look his best, after all, because Zayn looks so damn good even with his shirt on, somehow managing to look soft and approachable and studious even though his tank top reveals all the ink twining up his arms and shoulders.

“So,” Harry says, “This is the glamorous life of a bookstore worker? Sitting around all day?”

“Price of retail.” Zayn shrugs. “But it’ll give me spending money for the semester.” He gives Harry a wry look. “Not all of us can afford a summer just to fuck around.”

“Hey, I’m studying hard!” Harry whines. He’s never apologized for the fact that he is comfortably middle class, and he won’t now. Even if he vaguely remembers Zayn’s family not being. Remembers their house being comfortable, welcoming, but small. The sort of people he doesn’t think his mum would care for him hanging out with, if it came down to it. The sort of people rooted here. “’s not like you’re straining yourself here.”

“This is draining, what are you talking about?” Zayn deadpans, and Harry giggles.

“Where are Louis and Niall, then? If you’re so bored.”

“Told you, I have a book, I’m not bored. Much. And they’re around. Who knows?” Zayn shrugs, like it’s a mystery he can’t even imagine delving into.

“Why are they here?” Harry asks. “Not that they shouldn’t be, but are they just spending the summer with you?”

“Yeah. Well, most of it. Louis’s actually from around here, but his family’s on vacation with his step-dad, so he’s hanging around with me. He’ll go home when they get back in August. And Niall’s here.” Zayn shrugs again, but he’s smiling, that same beaming smile he had when he looked at Niall before. “He does what he wants.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?” Zayn’s eyebrows come together, like he honestly doesn’t understand. “They’re my best mates.”

“Yeah, but—” Harry can’t imagine spending all year even with Liam, who he’s known since they were three. Or Nick, god, Nick would kill him. But it’s not worth pursuing. He shakes his head. “What even are these?” he asks instead, picking up one of the keyrings in a bowl on the counter. It’s some amorphous blob, as far as Harry can tell. “Is it a ball of yarn?”

Zayn leans forward to look. “I have no idea.”

“Probably a dick, then,” Harry declares, and then, when Zayn looks at him with big amused eyes, “What? I took freshman English. I know everything’s actually a dick.” He tries to hold a straight face, but then Zayn is cracking up into a mess of giggles, and Harry can’t keep the pleased smile from spreading.


	2. Chapter 2

It becomes a part of his schedule—Harry stopping by the bookstore in the afternoon, even if he has to stay up later to fit his work in. Sometimes Louis and Niall, or one of them, is there, and they all chat and shoot the shit; sometimes there’s an actual customer or two and Harry waits patiently by the register for Zayn to help them. Even if, as Zayn explains, no one wants a bookstore person to be too helpful; the aloof disdain is part of the job. Harry has to point out how very hipster that is, which gets a shove from Zayn that almost has him flailing off the stool he’s pulled up to the counter before Zayn grabs his wrist to keep him steady. (He doesn’t start falling on purpose after that, not more than usual. Not even if it means Zayn looks at him all concerned with those dark eyes and touches him gently, like he means something).

But more often, it’s just the two of them, and it’s like Harry remembers it—easy conversation, easy laughter. Zayn’s really, really, funny in an understated sort of way, and there’s nothing Harry likes better than making him laugh, so it’s a lot of laughter, and sometimes when Zayn laughs he curls into whatever’s nearest, and often that’s Harry, so that’s good.

Sometimes Harry will bring them both lunch, because Zayn has a bad habit of not eating ‘til he gets off at four. Zayn eats like a cat, little picking bites, licking at his fingers or fork in a way that makes Harry lightheaded. Harry tries to counter by doing his own licking, by sucking at his straws so his cheeks hollow, and he thinks Zayn’s eyes go dark when he does. Sometimes they just sit together, Zayn reading and Harry studying. Sometimes Zayn will quiz Harry, rolling his eyes at the questions but listening intently when Harry explains them.

It’s also talking, though. A lot of talking. Harry’s never met anyone who listens as well as Zayn, remembers that from before, how he would just focus on Harry and make him feel like he was the center of Zayn’s world at that moment, like nothing mattered more than what Harry was saying, whether it’s something stupid rant about his classes or a confession about how terrified he is that his plan will get derailed somehow. And Harry tries to listen in turn, even if he’s not always great at listening. But it isn’t hard, because Zayn is fascinating, always, from the way his lips move around words to the way he laughs to his thoughts about books to his sarcastic quips to his stories about Louis and his pranks to the way he beams when he talks about his family.

“So,” Harry says, a few weeks later. He’s sitting cross-legged on the counter—sometimes he wonders if Mrs. Grady even cares what’s happening in this store, because she’s never been in, let alone objected to Harry hanging there—while Zayn’s on the chair behind the counter. It’s half an hour til Zayn gets off, and there hasn’t been a customer for an hour (Harry also wonders how the store stays afloat, but Zayn just shrugged when he asked). “Worst date?”

Zayn chuckles. “Oh, god, Louis and I.” Harry feels himself go tense. He had finally settled on Zayn and Louis not going out, not matter how much they touch, because he doesn’t think he’s imagining Zayn flirting with him and there’s never ever actual PDA—but…

Zayn must see the reaction, because he rolls his eyes. “Like, a friend set us up, because she thought we’d get along—which, well, we do, so. We actually set the restaurant on fire.” Zayn’s eyes go far away, and he smiles, distantly. “Still can’t go back, even if we got away with not paying. But yeah. Bad date.”

“So are you—”

He rolls his eyes again. “No. We dated for like six months, had a lot of good sex, but then we realized we were better off friends. But Lou’s the brother I never had now, so happy ending, I guess. You? Bad date story?”

Harry counters that with the story about the girl he’d met a few months into college, who had followed him for a day before they went on their date, then declared her undying love to him in the movie theater. “That’s when I knew I had to come out,” Harry says, shuddering at the memory. “Like, she was hot, but it was not worth it.”  

“Hmmm.” Harry glances over. Zayn isn’t laughing. Harry replays, and,

“Oh! No. I mean. Not that you weren’t, but—”

Zayn does laugh at that, stretches his arms above his head so his back arches and his shirt rides up to reveal a strip of skin at his stomach. “I told you, Haz, it’s fine. I get it. Really.”

“It wasn’t you. I just wasn’t ready.”

“I know.”

“I mean, you were great, you were, and it wasn’t that you weren’t hot enough or cool enough—”

“It was, though.” Zayn interrupts. Harry grunts an objection. Zayn shakes his head. He is smiling, but it’s not the grin Harry loves. It’s colder. “If I had been hot, and cool, and the kind of person Harry Styles could go out with, you might have considered it.” He shrugs again. Harry wants to interrupt, but there’s nothing he can say to that, because it’s true. He doesn’t much like it, doesn’t much like what it says about him, but it is true, sort of. It makes him sound like he was just thinking in terms of school politics, not in terms of what might have happened if it had gone wrong, if people had started shunning him. “I knew that. I tried anyway.” He laughs again, and this time it is amused. “God, I was so in love with you, I would have tried anything.”

“In love!” Harry squeaks. He hadn’t—he didn’t—what was he supposed to say to that?

“Well, in a teenager sort of way. More of a crush. But yeah.” He shakes his head, self-deprecating but amused. “It’s fine. Fueled my art for years. Probably got me into college, honestly.”

“You—” Harry clears his throat, tries again. “You never seemed heartbroken.”

“High school was very good at teaching me not to show emotions I could be teased for.” He says it so casually. Like it wasn’t the hardest lesson Harry had ever learned. Like it doesn’t hurt his heart a bit to hear that. “Anyway, it’s not like you were looking.”

He had. Harry had been looking, and really, really trying not to. Had been schooling himself into not looking at Zayn, into looking anywhere but at him, because it was too easy to look at only him. Because sometimes Zayn had laughed with one of his friends in the halls and Harry’s breath would catch, because once one of Harry’s friends had caught Harry watching Zayn drawing on the bleachers and remarked on how he was almost as pretty as a girl and teased about Harry having a crush. Harry had just laughed and rolled his eyes, and distracted him.

“Want to chill tonight?” Zayn goes on, like he hadn’t just confessed his once-love for Harry. Like it didn’t matter anymore. “My family’s out, so we can have the house to ourselves.” Harry’s heart stops again, or starts going very fast, before Zayn adds, “And Lou got some really good shit we can try.”

Right. We. All of them. “Can I bring Liam?” Harry asks. He needs somewhere there for him. Someone he can lean on. Who can remind him not to stare, because he’s forgetting all those lessons he’d learned now that he doesn’t have to be scared.

“Sure. As long as he doesn’t mind that Louis might eat him alive.”

“Li can stand up for himself.”

“You’d be surprised.” Zayn pulls out his phone, even as Harry does the same to text Liam. The door bell rings, and Zayn shoves at Harry’s hip. “Get off the table, we need to look professional.”

“I always look professional!” Harry protests, and they’re both laughing hard enough the middle-aged man who’s just come in looks at them like they’re insane.

\---

Zayn’s house is like Harry had remembered it—small, but homey, with pictures of Zayn and his sisters up on the walls and some paintings signed with a small _zm_ over the mantel. Harry stops, for a second, at a picture of Zayn as Harry remembered him—softer, with the one blonde streak that was somehow not ridiculous, without any of the tattoos. He smiles at that, a sudden surge of warmth rising in him at the image, before Zayn ushers him through and onto the porch.

Liam’s already there, eying the swing seat where Louis and Niall are sitting with a little bit of trepidation and a bit of amusement. He’s got a beer in hand and is leaning back, though, so Harry thinks the amusement is winning.

“Zayner!” Niall yells, when they emerge onto the back porch. “Harry!”

“That’s us,” Zayn agrees, and grins at them. “Started without us, have you?”

“Louis said you wouldn’t mind.” Liam pipes in, a little nervously. He scoots over, so Harry sits on the loveseat next to him. Instead of going over to Louis and Niall, though, Zayn perches on the arm next to Harry, draping himself over the back of the couch above Harry. It only makes Harry go a little breathless.

“I don’t,” Zayn agrees, “Long as there’s still some for us.”

“Won’t your neighbors care?” Liam presses.

Zayn shakes his head. “Nah, they never have before. So, is there some for us working boys?”

“You working boy,” Harry inserts. “I’m a man of leisure, I am. I just like to watch the peasants.”

He can hear the grin in Zayn’s voice. “Like to watch me?” he purrs.

It’s one of the things he does. Harry’s not sure if it’s a new thing or if he just didn’t notice it before, but Zayn’s a bit of an incorrigible flirt, with everyone. Harry thinks it might just be because he’s so damn hot that everyone wants him to always be flirting. But whatever the reason, it means he’s always flirting with Harry. And Harry being Harry, and also the flirtiest flirt to ever flirt (Nick’s words), they spend a lot of their time flirting. It’s a friend thing, Harry knows; Zayn does it with Louis too. Doesn’t make it less fun. Or less painful.

“Always,” Harry grins back, tilts his head up so he can look at Zayn. “You just look so pretty slaving over the books.”

“Slaving.” Louis snorts. “Doesn’t do anything, more like. Don’t know how you managed to find the easiest job in the world.”

“Luck and skill, babe,” Zayn retorts, and blows a kiss to Louis. Louis pretends to swat it away, then Niall snatches it out of the air and presses it to Louis’s cheek.

“Ew!” Louis cries out. “Zayn cooties!”

“You know you love them.”

“Just for that, you aren’t getting any.”

“What about me?” Harry gives Louis his best pout, big eyes and quivering lower lip.

Louis glances at him, then looks away. “Malik, control him. Don’t need to deal with your…guest.”

“Can’t do it,” Liam inserts, a little sharply, coming to Harry’s defense. “Can’t stand against the Styles pout.”

“It’s not fair, honestly.” Louis huffs out a breath. “I don’t like it.”

Harry ignores whatever Niall says to that, to look over his shoulder at Zayn. Zayn’s smiling fondly at all of them, just a lovely soft smile that seems to say there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here. It’s a lovely smile. Harry’d prefer it’d just be at him.

“So,” he asks, pitching his voice low, adds a bit of a rasp, “Gonna control me, Malik?”

Zayn’s smile does focus on him, then. “Don’t think it’s possible, babe.”

Harry’s smile spreads, slow and smirky. “I’d let you try.” Zayn’s gaze focuses, flicks from Harry’s lips up to his eyes then back down again. His own tongue peeks out, wets his lips, and Harry swallows. Yes. This is something, this is real, yes yes yes—

“Oi, you two. You want to smoke or just keep eye-fucking?”

Zayn’s gaze jerks away, back to Louis, and the moment’s cracked, broken into a thousand pieces. “Fuck off,” he says, and takes the joint Liam’s gingerly passing him. Harry resists the urge to pout as he leans back. Louis gives him a quick smirk, then turns to Niall to joke about something.

Two hours later, and they’re all really high, except for Liam, who is just very drunk, and Harry is sure of that because he was all for the game of truth or dare Louis proposed until Niall had nixed it because apparently Zayn and Louis could get mean with their dares, and he didn’t want to get kicked out of the neighborhood. So instead they’re playing a lazy game of truth, sort of.

“Liam,” Niall says, to the air, “Animals. What animal am I?”

“I dunno, I don’t know you,” Liam slurs a little. He’s tipped over so he’s resting against Harry’s shoulder, and Zayn’s got his hand stroking over his hair. Harry is trying very hard not to be jealous. The weed is helping. “But, like, a bunny, I think.”

“Hey!” Niall sounds anything but offended. “I am way fiercer than a rabbit.”

“What about, like, that one from Monty Python?” Zayn suggests. His voice is heavy with the weed, and every time he talks Harry squirms a little, thinks about how it would sound whispered in his ear. “With the teeth.”

“Yeah, that one,” Liam agrees. “But all cute too.”

“I like it.”

“Okay, Nialler our killer bunny.” Louis pokes him in the side. “We can throw him at things and he’ll eat them.”

Niall bares his teeth, which looks more like a wide grin than anything, and they all collapse into giggles.

“My turn now!” Liam announces, when they’re done. “It’s my turn. Zayn. You’re the one who knows all of us. What’s one word to describe each of us?”

“Hmmm…” Zayn breathes out, a little dreamily.

“That’s a good one,” Louis agrees. “So, Zee?”

“’m thinking.”

“Think faster,” Harry whines, which makes Louis laugh. Harry’s laughing back when he feels a hand on his hair, and if he was a little less high he’d probably have frozen solid. Zayn’s petting him now, slow and lazy, his hand scratching over the top of Harry’s head. He closes his eyes, focusing on the feeling and not pushing into it like he wants.

“Kay. Liam’s Batman.”

Liam snorts out a laugh.

“Why?” Louis demands.

“’s the only thing we’d ever talked about before this summer,” Liam explains, “Used to share comic books, sometimes.”

“You did?” Harry opens his eyes to glare at Liam. He’d never told him that. He should have told him he had talked to Zayn. Had been friendly with him. Liam shrugs.

“Okay, me,” Louis demands.

“Fire.”

“Hah!”

“How many things have you two set on fire?”

“More than you want to know, probably.”

Zayn’s fingers are still working over Harry’s hair, twirling a lock between them, then scratching, and Harry feels like a cat in heat, wants to reach up and yank Zayn into his lap, wants Zayn never to stop petting, wants to rub himself into Zayn.

“And Niall’s sunshine,” Zayn goes on.

“Awww.”

“Adorable.”

“And Harry?”

Harry thinks he can sense the smile on Zayn’s face, so he tilts his head up to look, careful not to dislodge his hand. Zayn is smiling, sure enough, smiling with a hint of mischief to it too. “Got to be sexy, doesn’t it.”

“Heyyyy,” Harry whines, grinning and probably blushing, as Niall and Liam burst into laughter.

“Well look at these curls.” Zayn pulls at them. “How could anyone resist?”

You can, Harry doesn’t say, but Zayn also thinks he’s sexy, and is playing with his hair, so he doesn’t complain.

“So, Lou,” Zayn says, like he’s not turning Harry into putty, “What ice cream flavor am I?”

\---

Later, as Zayn escorts Harry out, with Liam draped over Niall in front of them, Harry wraps his arms around Zayn’s waist, pushes himself close so he can nip at Zayn’s ear. “You’re pretty,” he mutters.

“Thanks, babe,” Zayn laughs, which is a nice sound, so Harry licks at Zayn’s neck again. In front of them, Liam and Niall are singing some sort of Irish drinking song.

“Really, really pretty,” Harry keeps saying, “I want to lick you.”

“Think you already are.”

“I want to lick you all over. Would you run away if I kissed you? I don’t want you to run away again.”

Zayn goes very, very still. Then, “No, Harry,” He says, firmly, and moves on of his hands from Harry’s back to push his head away. Harry tries to move it back, because he liked how Zayn’s neck tastes, and Zayn keeps the pressure up, so Harry can’t get closer.

“Zayyyyyn,” he complains, and Zayn smiles again.

“Hazzzzz,” he echoes in the same tone. They’ve made it outside on the other side. “You gonna get home okay?”

“If I say no will I get to stay with you?” Harry wants that like he wants air. Wants to be able to stay with Zayn, to keep cuddling with him and kiss the starlight out of him, to do all the things he was too afraid to do as a teenager, to get that laughter and those bright-eyed smiles all for him.

“If you say no I’m leaving you to die,” Zayn teases back, even if Harry hadn’t meant it like he was teasing. “So you better be okay.”

Harry sighs, hugely. “I’ll be fine. No thanks to you.”

Zayn grins, and the light from inside catches on his hair and eyelashes and makes him look like he’s sparkling. “Good. See you later, Harry.” He leans over to brush a kiss to Harry’s cheek in good-bye. It’s friendly and he does it with everyone and it sends sparks all over Harry’s skin. “Get home safe.”

He sends Harry on his way with a friendly slap to his ass, and Harry yelps and sticks his tongue out as he stumbles over to latch onto Liam. Zayn’s still standing in the doorway as they leave, smiling softly, and only Liam’s arm on him keeps Harry from running back.

\---

“Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with Zayn?” Harry demands, walking into Liam’s room after a full morning of brooding over the question and getting terribly distracted from the practice test he was doing. He glares down at Liam, hands on hips. He doesn’t think he can intimidate Liam, but he can try.

“Didn’t know I had to,” Liam says idly, not looking away from the laptop open in front of him on the bed.

“ _Liam_.” Harry whines, and sits down on the bed next to him. Being angry and confused is exhausting. This is why he likes his plans. There isn’t any confusion there. Why does Zayn always have to mess them up?

Liam does look up at that, over his shoulder at Harry. “What? We weren’t really friends, we chatted a bit in, like, freshman year. I think Dani dragged me to one of his art shows once and I complimented him on something.” His eyebrows come together, and he gives Harry a patented Liam Payne Concerned Look. “Why? You never really knew him either, right?”

“Right,” Harry agrees. “Right.”

Liam cocks his head. “Harry?”

He’s always been shit at lying. “We did that project together,” he says, all in a rush. “And, like, that was a lot of time spent together, because it was a weirdly intense project. Like, there was a diorama and a report and a powerpoint, who even does that? And—”

“Harry,” Liam snaps. Harry blinks. Right.

“I didn’t really know him.” It’s the truth, Harry thinks. Or part of it. He knew he was funny and nice and clever and cute. But he didn’t really know him. “I just—he was, like, different crowd, right?”

“Yeah.” Liam’s still not looking convinced that it’s nothing, so Harry gives him his best innocent, distracting grin. It’s unfortunate that Liam’s been friends with him too long to really fall for it, just rolls his eyes instead. “Why do you care?”

Harry misses his college friends who still fall for his shit. “I don’t. I just didn’t know you were friends with artsy kids.”

“Oh? Could I not be friends with people who weren’t athletes?”

No, Harry wants to yell. No, you couldn’t, because I couldn’t, because it wasn’t something we could do, because we would have been shunned and I couldn’t have done everything I did and wouldn’t be where I am. No, because I said no to Zayn because he wasn’t all the things we were supposed to be, and he would have messed up the plan.

“Yeah, I mean, obviously,” he says instead, with a laugh that convinces no one. “Not like I was an athlete, right? And what would I have done without you?” he drops down, so he can drape himself over Liam’s back and cuddle into him and not look him in the eyes.

“Is this about you trying to sleep with Zayn?” Liam asks. Harry makes a noise that’s muffled in Liam’s shirt rather than answer. Liam just soldiers on. “Because you’re putting a lot more effort into that than I expected.”

Harry lifts his head up at that so he can speak clearly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Liam shrugs, matter of fact. “Just that I thought you’d strike out or seal the deal that first day. Didn’t expect you to stick around.” He twists, so he might be able to see Harry out of the corner of his eyes. “You didn’t seal the deal, right?”

“No.” Harry presses his lips together. He doesn’t like that phrase. Doesn’t like it now. It sounds so mercenary. “I just…”

“Struck out? Is that why you’re determined? He is really hot.”

“No,” Harry snaps. Not that he isn’t, but he’s so much more than that, always has been, and now he knows what it feels like to kiss Zayn, now he’s remembered those smiles and the depth of his eyes and the way he bites his lip. “I mean, yes, I did. But I’m hanging out with him because he’s cool, and so are Louis and Niall.”

Liam makes a gesture Harry thinks would be him holding out his hands if he weren’t weighed down by Harry. “Hey, I agree. I’ve always agreed. I just didn’t think you had.”

Harry drops back down to Liam’s shirt so he doesn’t have to answer.

\---

“Hey.”

Zayn looks up when Harry’s shadow falls over his sketchbook, his eyes crinkling in a smile. He is, unfortunately, wearing a shirt, but Harry guesses that’s a little more necessary at a park than at the pool, and anyway the t-shirt is loose-necked enough that the tips of wings are revealed and the tease of it is almost better.

“Hey, babe,” Zayn says, still with that little smile. He doesn’t move from his precariously balanced position, perched on the arm of the bench with his sketchbook balanced on his knees and one foot braced on the seat, but Harry sits down anyway. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. What are you doing here?” Harry’d been more than a little buzzed when he got here, on the sun and beer and life, but it’s hard to remember that when he can lean his head against Zayn’s side.

“Sketching.”

It’s a silly answer, so Harry makes a face at him, and he giggles back. “No,” Harry says, slowly, in case Zayn didn’t understand, “Why are you here, and not at Chris’s? Everyone else is at Chris’s. My mom let me skip studying today to be at Chris’s. I think Niall’s at Chris’s.”

“Yeah, him and Lou both.” Zayn gives his sketchpad a fond look that Harry guesses is probably not meant for it. “Never met a party Niall couldn’t get into. I think he senses beer, like, has some sort of radar for it.”

“Then why are you here?” Harry demands. Because he’s at the right level, he turns to rub his nose into Zayn’s shirt, but it ends up with him just resting his forehead against him. It means he’s staring at Zayn’s hip, at the parallel lines of hip and jean and belt. “You should be there.”

Something about Zayn moves. Harry can’t tell what it is. “Didn’t feel like people, today.”

Harry drags his face up so he can look up at Zayn. Zayn’s sketching still, his hands moving across the paper with confident, quick motions that Harry thinks would probably be best done against his skin. “Don’t feel like people?”

“Yeah.” Zayn shrugs. “Just, like, wanted some time alone. Even from Lou and Niall.”

“That you telling me to leave?”

Zayn laughs, quietly. “Nah, you can stay, I guess.”

“Good.” Idly, Harry bites at Zayn’s side. Zayn barely even reacts, just winces away and keeps drawing. “I should go back.”

“Okay.”

He doesn’t. There’s a part of him that wants to—a part of him that doesn’t understand what Zayn had said, about not feeling like people, because Harry always wants to be around people. He loves people, loves their stories and their energy and figuring out how they fit together, how to make them like him. Zayn not liking them is a little un-understandable, but that’s why he was who he was in high school. He hadn’t wanted to be around people, had wanted to sort of hide in the art room and library. Harry hadn’t understood it then, either, because he was so lovely and why hadn’t he wanted people to know? Why hadn’t he wanted people to know so then everyone could love him and then Harry—well, maybe he could have—

But Zayn hadn’t wanted that, and Harry had, and that was that. Just like that could be that now, if Harry gets up and leaves and goes back to all the people who want him to laugh and be charming and smile and flirt and be the perfect golden Harry Styles who’ll get into a great law school and be successful and get out of this town, who don’t look at him like he’s the center of everything when he talks and don’t laugh at his jokes even when he knows they aren’t funny and don’t make fun of him and don’t catch him when he falls off stools and don’t have eyes Harry wants to find the bottom of.

So Harry stays. Rests his head against Zayn’s leg and stays, watching the kids playing in the park, absorbing the warmth that seeps through Zayn’s jeans and into Harry. He can feel, as much as see, the movement of Zayn’s arm as he sketches, knows if he looked up he’d see Zayn chewing on his lip as he looked at his sketchpad, or maybe out at the people he was sketching. It’s nice, really. To be quiet like this. Harry’s not sure he ever has been, too busy making plans and studying and working.

It’s also nice how he can at least pretend he can feel Zayn’s heartbeat against his cheek, how Zayn’s ankle is at just the right place that it really doesn’t take any effort to wrap a hand around it, right over the edge of his sneakers. His skin is warm there too, the bit Harry can reach between his pants and his shoes, so Harry really can’t help but circle his finger over it, stroke around the bone of his ankle.

Zayn breathes in, sharply, and Harry smiles a little, watching his hand holding Zayn.

“Why’d you and Louis break up?” he asks, idly. He’s not good at silence. “Is it ‘cause of this, ‘cause he wanted to go to parties and shit?”

“Nah.” Zayn’s voice is even again, even though Harry’s slid more fingers under the hem of his jeans. “He’s as much of a shut-in as I am, sometimes. We just…” he trails off, but not like he’s not going to talk, just like he’s thinking. Harry gives his ankle an encouraging stroke, sliding a little higher. He can feel the goosebumps following his touch.

“We bring out the worst in each other, sometimes,” Zayn says at last. “Like, we do as friends, too, but, like, I know setting things on fire isn’t actually good. And that’s the sort of shit we got up to. And in, like, emotional stuff.” Zayn’s shrug makes his shirt rub against Harry’s face. “We’re just too the same in a lot of the wrong ways for a relationship, I guess, you know? Like, relationships need to be about balance, and Lou and I were all on one side of the scale, yeah?”

Harry doesn’t know, really. But he likes the sound of it, as much as he likes the way Zayn’s reacting to his hand moving over his calf, because he and Zayn are all sorts of different.

“But you’re still friends? And not, like, in love?”

“We were never in love.” Zayn punctuates that with a poke to Harry’s head with the end of his pen. “Not all relationships are about love.”

“I know that.” Harry glances up, then. Zayn’s not looking at him, is very clearly looking at his sketchpad. “The best ones are.”

“Of course.”

“And they’re balanced, right? All that stuff you were saying?”

“Sure, ‘course.”

“And sex.”

Zayn snorts. “Always.”

Check and check, and Harry thinks—worries—thinks—he might be able to manage the first. “I’ve got pretty good balance,” he says, quietly. Which is pretty subtle, if he does say so himself.

For a second, Harry thinks Zayn is going to say something. It almost looks like he will, with the way his eyes dart to Harry, how he bites at his lip. Feels like it, with his leg quivering under Harry’s hand. This is it, he thinks. Finally.

But then, “Haz, you’re the klutziest person I know,” Zayn laughs, and looks away, back at his sketchpad.

Shit. Harry glares down at his hand for a second. He thinks Zayn had picked up on his hint, but what if he didn’t? What if he needs to be less subtle? He doesn’t think anyone’s ever told him to be _less_ subtle, but it could happen.

“I—” he starts, but Zayn cuts him off by swinging his sketchpad closed. “What?”

“I’ve got to go,” he announces. He’s not quite looking at Harry. “I—home.”

“But…” Zayn gently extricates himself from Harry, pushes his head back so he can sit up. “Why?”

“My mum needs me.” He’s lying. Harry knows he’s lying, because he’s talking too fast and also Zayn’s mum isn’t home during the day, he’s told Harry that she works until five. “Later, Haz. Go back to the party.”

“But I want to hang out with you,” Harry counters, trying to keep the whine out of his voice. He does. Well, he’d like to do both, really, but he likes it here with Zayn too.

“Well, I’ve got to go,” Zayn repeats. It’s not sharp, for all it sounds like it should be; just, like, resigned. “Go back to your friends, Harry.”

He’s got his stubborn face on; Harry doesn’t think he’ll be caving. Harry pouts anyway, and holds his hands out. Zayn sighs gustily, but he takes them and pulls Harry to his feet. If Harry stumbles a little, so he falls into Zayn and Zayn has to catch with his hands on Harry’s hips and their body’s curled together, well, Zayn is leaving. It’s only fair Harry gets _something_.

Zayn chuckles, and Harry’s close enough he can see his throat moving, can see each eyelash against his cheek as they blink open and closed. “See?” Zayn says. Harry thinks he can feel every part of them that’s touching like a brand. “Klutz.”

“I can be careful.”

Zayn blinks again, and his smile fades a little, or changes, or something. “Sure you can,” he says, and runs his hand over Harry’s back once before he steps away. “See you later, babe.”

There’s no getting out of it. Harry gives a sigh as gusty as Zayn’s was, and lets go. “Fine, go away, I don’t want to see you anymore,” he announces, and slaps Zayn’s ass for good measure and also fun.

Zayn just grins over his shoulder and walks away. Harry watches him go, then heads the other way back towards the party.

\---

“So do you like graphic design?” Harry asks idly, the next day at the bookstore. Zayn is acting like nothing happened—not that anything did, or maybe he didn’t notice something did, but to Harry it did—so Harry is too, wandering around the bookstore and looking at the spines on the shelves while Zayn reshelves things. Harry likes it when he has to do that, because there’s a lot of bending down and stretching and muscles happening for Harry to look at.

“Yeah, it’s great! Like, I thought I would go for fine arts, but…” Zayn shrugs, and reaches up to shelve a book on the top shelf. His shirt rides up in the back, revealing a line of skin above his jeans. Harry doesn’t bother looking away.

“But what?”

“But then, I dunno, I didn’t like it as much, and the graphic design program at RISD, is, like, the best, and it’s really sick, so…”

There are too many things in that statement to take in, when Zayn is also bending down so his jeans press against his ass, so it takes Harry a second to pick the most important one. “RISD? That’s where you go?”

“Yeah.” Zayn straightens, which is a pity, and moves to the next set of shelves. Harry trails after him.

“I go to Brown!” It’s fate, it must be, or something like it. They’ve been so close all along. When Zayn doesn’t say anything, Harry pokes him in the back. “Why aren’t you excited?”

“I knew you went there. It was, like, all over the school.”

“Oh. Right.” Harry grins nostalgically. Those were the days. When getting into an Ivy meant everyone was talking about it. He had been—still was, really—so proud of that. Right on track. Ivy league college, good law school, success. He and his mum had had their own little party for it, and Gemma had skyped in, and it had been wonderful. “Wish I’d have known, I could have visited you or something.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Harry knows that as soon as it’s out of his mouth, and he bites at his tongue as Zayn’s fingers curl around the spine of an old Nora Roberts. He really wishes he could see Zayn’s face.

“No,” Zayn says, surely. Not sadly, still. Just, certain. It’s almost worse. “You wouldn’t.”

“Probably not,” Harry agrees, because he can’t not. But he moves forward, throws his arms around Zayn from behind and pulls him close, hooking his chin over Zayn’s shoulder and squeezing. “But I will now. You can show me all your cool artsy friends.”

“What, Brown hippies not enough?” Zayn laughs, and the tension’s draining out of him.

“Hey,” Harry protests, and lets Zayn wiggle away. “We’re not all hippies.”

Zayn hits the rim of the straw hat Harry’s wearing today pointedly, then goes back to his shelving. “It’s ironic,” Harry argues. That gets a laugh from Zayn.

“So you’re just hipsters?”

“Like you aren’t.” That strip of skin is back. It shouldn’t be allowed to look this good when doing something so stupid. It’s just sort of excessive. Almost worse than at the pool, because then at lest he wasn’t wearing a shirt, so it was understandable. Now he’s fully clothed, and Harry still wants him so hard it hurts. “I’ve seen you high, I know the shit you say.”

“I am deep high, I’ll have you know,” Zayn counters, mock-offended, and slaps at Harry with a copy of Rousseau, which actually is ironic. Harry dances out of the way, almost trips over a low ladder, and catches himself on the bookshelf.

Zayn barely glances over his shoulder. “You okay, babe?” he asks, idly. Harry has a sudden, perverse desire to say no, to see what Zayn would do, but that would be mean because he’s pretty sure Zayn would actually care a lot, if not how Harry wants him to.

“Yeah,” he says, then, “So what do you want to do with that?”

“Well, I, like, I’d love to draw comics, you know? Or do shit with that.”

“Comics? Really?”

“Yes.” Zayn shoves the next book into place with deliberate delicacy. “Really.”

“Like, superheroes? Still?”

The tightness is back in Zayn’s voice. “Yes, still.”

“Writing them? For a living?” Harry studies Zayn’s back like it could be an explanation. There just doesn’t sound like there’s money in that. Or security.

“Some adults like comics, Harry. Liam, for example. Me, for another.” It’s not angry, Harry thinks, trying to figure out what’s weird; it’s just crisp. Sharp, in a way only Zayn’s body is. He might be all sharp angles, but he’s also kind of all softness and gentle touches. Except for now. “Superheroes speak to the essential optimist in all of us, the belief that we can be the best we can be, that good will triumph. That humanity is good, at its essence. Except for, like Watchmen, but that’s not really superheroes. But Batman, Superman, Captain America, Iron Man—they’re all the best of us, or our struggles, like in any book, so yeah, superheroes.” He shoves the next book in, grabs another book and shelves it with the same air of carefully held in violence.

Harry waits for a second. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. He’s not even sure if Zayn is mad, or if he is, why. So he waits, then, when Zayn’s shelved a few more books, moves forward to put a hand on Zayn’s back. Zayn likes touching, he’s noticed—cuddles with Niall, throws an arm around Louis’s shoulders. Even with Harry, he’s always touching him, casual little pats on the arm and shoulder, nudges with his hips. Like he likes to know they’re all there. Harry figures it’ll probably help, here. And tries not to think about the fact that his hand fits into the curve of Zayn’s back perfectly.

“Zayn?” he says, quietly, and taps his finger against Zayn’s spine.

“Yeah?” Zayn’s voice sounds perfectly normal now. Harry’s happy about that, because, yes, he likes Zayn not being mad or whatever he was, likes him chill and happy and soft, but he’d also kind of like to maybe hear him a little breathless. To hear that he feels the fireworks in their touch too.

“You…” Harry trails off. He doesn’t even know what he wants to ask.

So he does what he does best, and changes the subject to something lighter. “Are you going to Maddie’s party Saturday?” he asks.

Zayn shrugs. It doesn’t dislodge Harry’s hand. “Dunno. Was thinking about it. Lou wants to go. Niall will anyway.”

“And if I said I was going?”

“I’d say duh.”

Harry sticks his tongue out at the back of Zayn’s head, and Zayn laughs like he can sense it. “You should come, though!” Harry insists. “Come on, you haven’t been to any of the summer parties, and she always has the best booze.”

“Your argument is compelling,” Zayn teases. He moves away, but not like he’s mad, just like he actually has a job to do, which Harry guesses is fair. He goes back to perching on the ladder. “Free alcohol is a good reason.”

“See?” Harry uses his best wheedling voice. If Zayn would turn around, he’d give him his best puppy dog eyes, but he’s still shelving. “You should definitely co-ome. You can prove to everyone how hot you’ve gotten.”

“Right. Because that’s something I need to do.”

“Zayn, come! You might as well, I won’t stop. And I’ll buy you ice cream.” That startles a laugh out of Zayn, which is always nice. Actually, ice cream. “Actually, ice cream sounds good. Want any?”

“Can’t shelve and eat at the same time, and I’ve got, like, infinite shelving to do.”

“Then finish shelving!”

“If you helped, maybe I’d finish sooner.”

“I am helping! I am doing a very important job ogling you,” Harry protests, and gives Zayn an overdramatic leer, complete with waggling eyebrows, as Zayn twists to laugh at him for that. “It’s important your work is appreciated,” Harry adds primly, and Zayn does that thing he does when he curls inward to laugh, like it’s shaking him apart, and Harry can’t help but look at how his shoulders shake and his neck curves, and how he’s really not kidding at all.

\---

Harry does manage to convince Zayn, because he is the best at convincing people, and also did manage to recruit Niall—Louis still always looks sideways at him, and Harry doesn’t think he’d go along with anything he suggested just because Harry suggested it. Sometimes, he wonders how much things are over between Zayn and Louis. But however it works, he does manage to get Zayn to swear to be at the party.

Which means, of course, it is the one time Harry is running late. He hadn’t meant to, really, but his mom had insisted on a family dinner and it had dragged on forever and then Harry had had to fuss over his clothes for six outfits because he likes to look good at parties. And also, he can’t deny, to himself least of all, because Zayn will be there. Finally, he settles on his skinniest jeans, the ones that make his thighs and ass look great, and a plaid shirt he can leave unbuttoned to the chest. He thinks he looks quite dashing.

He’s on his way out the door, just about on time more or less, when his mom calls from the living room.

“You heading out?”

“Yep!” He studies his boots, after considering if he really wants a higher heel because then he’d be even taller than Zayn, which he’s not sure Zayn’s into. He compromises on the medium heel, and pulls them on. “Don’t wait up, I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Can you give me a ride to Becky’s first?” She appears in the doorway. She’s dressed to go out too, in a flowing dress and all made up, the most beautiful mom in the world, Harry knows. “That way you can have the car.”

Harry glances at his watch. He’s going to be so late.

“I feel like we haven’t seen each other,” she adds, and Harry sighs. She’s right, is the thing. Usually at summers he’ll spend at least a few days a week with her, going out to windowshop or wander or just talk. But he’s been spending so much time at Zayn’s this summer, he’s been neglecting her a bit, he guesses.

“Yeah, of course.” He grins, and she grins back, as she slides on silver sandals and grabs her purse.

“So where have you been so much?” she asks, as Harry pulls out of the driveway. “You’ve disappeared.”

“I’m getting my work done!” Harry protests. He is, more or less. Zayn’s been helping a lot, really.

“I know.” She holds up her hands with another laugh. “Though have you sent your resume to Des? He has—”

“I’ll do it tomorrow.” Harry glances at the clock. He hates being late. What if Zayn’s already there? What if he’s drunk, and Louis’s there, and they have great sex apparently. What if it’s like high school, and everyone is mean to him, and he’s miserable and then he hates Harry for making him go?

“Sorry, sorry. No one wants to think about work on the way to a party.” She tugs on his collar to straighten it, and he spares a thankful smile for her after he’s taken a left. “So where have you been? Didn’t think I’d forget, did I?”

“No.” Harry presses his lips together, but he’s always told his mom everything. Mostly. Except for those years with the huge secret. “There’s this boy.”

“Oh?” she drawls out, teasing. “A boy? Having a summer romance?”

“Trying to.” If Zayn would only cooperate. “I’m in the process.”

“Well, he’d be stupid not to love you. Especially looking as handsome as you do.” They pull into Becky’s driveway, and she opens her door. “Now, no drinking and driving, call a cab if you have to. Don’t drink from open containers.”

“ _Mom_.”

“And have safe sex!” she calls, as he reaches over to slam the door shut behind her, sticking his tongue out as he does.

\---

By the time he actually gets to the party it’s in full swing. There are all sorts of kids their age scattered around Maddie’s massive lawn, from the playset for her sisters to the patio where chairs and a couch are set up, to the firepit with logs around it, to the most crowded table where Harry assumes there’s booze, because it is the most crowded. He debates between finding people first, or getting a drink, but then he spots Maddie by he drinks table and decides to go over to talk to her and kill two birds with one stone.

He talks with her for a while and snags a can of beer while he’s there, then moves on to Brad, and Aimee, and Josh, and on and on. He hasn’t spotted Zayn yet, though he catches a glimpse of Niall and a guitar leading what looks like a group singalong of Living on a Prayer, when he’s finally accosted by a girl he vaguely recognizes from student council.

She’s already well on her way to pissed, given the way she squeals and presses a sloppy kiss to Harry’s cheek. “Harry!” she cries, more excited than Harry thinks is strictly necessary, given that they weren’t really close in high school. He thinks her name is Natasha, but he really isn’t sure. “You’re here! Hi!”

“Hey,” he says, and brushes his lips against her cheek. He refrains from pushing her fire-engine red hair out of his mouth when he pulls away, because he’s a good person. “How’re you?”

“I’m great,” she slurs. “So many people are here! It’s like high school all over again.” It’s pretty true, glancing around—Harry knows almost everyone here, like a flashback to the parties then—so Harry nods. “Except more people are here. And, like, everyone’s older.” Harry opens his mouth to insert something, but she talks over him. Harry vaguely remembers that, too. “And hotter. Have you seen Zayn Malik? He’s around and fuck.” She lets go of Harry to fan herself. “I would jump him in a hot second. He’s, like, fuck.”

Harry sympathizes. “Yeah, I know. Everyone grows up.” He’s trying to figure out how to break it to her gently that Zayn’s gay and she doesn’t have a chance, when it suddenly occurs to him—with a harsh jolt of his stomach—that he doesn’t actually know that. Zayn had never really said anything about his sexuality, ever, so while Harry knows he likes guys he actually doesn’t know if he likes girls too.

“Oh yeah, you’re gay too, now.” She doesn’t look away from wherever she’s staring. “That why you wouldn’t fuck me back then? Anyway, look at him!” She gestures, and Harry follows the direction of his hands. Zayn and Louis are talking to a group of girls near the firepit, and Zayn’s got a hand on Louis’s hip and his other hand is waving wildly as Louis holds two drinks, and the girls are laughing and curling their hair around their fingers, and suddenly everything in Harry hurts.

Zayn’s got a black button down open over a black shirt and dark jeans and it’s mouthwateringly gorgeous, with his hair tousled and his sleeves rolled up so the tattoos coil out around the muscles of his forearms, and Harry feels so very Victorian, but god he wants to press kisses to that wrist, wants to trail his tongue up the vein there to the edge of his shirt, see if their hearts are beating in time. But instead Zayn grabs his drink out of Louis hand and one of the girls puts her hand on his arm.

“Hey, excuse me?” he says to Natasha with a sheepish smile, and breaks away from her with one of his smiles that makes her smile back. He circles around, talks to a few people, but he’s basically sober and not distractible, so he gets to Zayn quickly.

“Harry!” Zayn cries when he spots Harry approaching, and Harry has half a second to appreciate how different it is when he says his name rather than Natasha before he’s got Zayn pressed against him, arms wrapped around his waist and hugging him close. “Look, I’m here!”

“Good!” Harry grins into his hair, then swallows when Zayn’s nose rubs into his neck. “You okay?”

“He’s pretty drunk,” Louis says, coming up behind him. “Always gets handsy when he’s drunk.”

“More than usual?” Harry asks, and Zayn laughs into his skin.

“Yeah, more. With everyone.” Louis gives them an unreadable look. “You good here, Zaynie?”

“Uh-huh.” Zayn lifts up his head and smiles, brilliantly. “I’m not that drunk. I can take care of myself.”

“Like that time with the jello shots?” Louis asks, grinning, and Zayn shifts his head so he can stick his tongue out at Louis, even if he’s still all pressed against Harry.

“That’s not fair. Jello shots aren’t fair, right Harry?”

“Why aren’t they fair?” Harry asks. He likes jello shots. He also likes how Zayn is touching him, how he’s pulled them tight together.

“Because this one’s got no tolerance for them,” Louis answers for Zayn.

“It’s my sweet tooth,” Zayn agrees, “They taste like jello! Of course I’m going to eat them.”

“Then he gets smashed and throws up.”

“Once. That happened once, and you’ve done it, like, lots more, and it was on Niall anyway.” He grins at Harry, loose and sloppy and a little overblown, and Harry can’t help but grin back, like he’s part of the joke.

Music starts up, somewhere, not just Niall’s guitar but actual music—Drake, Harry thinks, or something R ‘n B like that. Zayn’s head jerks, like he’s a magnet drawn to it, and he twists them so he can see where a crowd of people have apparently decided to turn a patch of grass into a dance floor.

“I want to dance,” Zayn announces, and lets go of Harry’s waist. It’s very cold, suddenly. “C’mon, let’s dance.”

“You want to dance?” Harry asks. It just doesn’t quite add up, or compute, or something.

“Only when he’s drunk,” Louis explains, with a fond look for Zayn and a look at Harry that’s almost challenging. “Otherwise he never would.”

“But I am drunk and I am going to dance,” Zayn declares. Harry hasn’t heard him sound this authoritative ever, he thinks. “C’mon.”

He sets off, tugging Harry after him. Harry has zero objections to dancing with Zayn—or maybe negative?—so he lets him. It’s only a little sad when Louis catches up to them, slinging an arm over Zayn’s shoulder and pulling him close to whisper something in his ear. Zayn giggles, whispers something back, and Louis makes a face that has Zayn laughing harder.

“Where’re you all off to?” Niall asks, appearing next to him.

“Niall!” Zayn yells, just like he had yelled Harry’s name, and lets go of Harry to grab Niall’s face and kiss him smackingly on the cheek.

“Love you too, Zayner,” Niall laughs. He’s slurring a bit too.

“Niall!” Zayn says again. “We’re going to dance.”

“Brilliant!” Niall hooks an arm around Louis so they look like some weird three-headed person, and Zayn reaches out to Harry.

“Hey, Harry!” a voice calls from behind them, and Harry turns, grins. He hasn’t seen Jason since last Christmas. “How’ve you been, man?”

“Pretty great! You? How’s Kenyon?” Harry asks. Out of the corner of his eye, Zayn’s hand drops back to his side, and Louis’s arm slides down from his shoulder to his waist. But he can’t just leave, when people are trying to talk to him. That’d be rude.

“You know, same old.”

He hadn’t been close to Jason, so it doesn’t take long for them to catch up, but then Kara finds him and wants to talk about law schools they’re applying to, so it’s a good ten minutes and a beer before he’s done with that and he can go find Zayn again. He makes his way towards the dance floor—dance grass?—and circles, trying to spot them.

When he does, he almost wishes he didn’t. Zayn isn’t clumsy, really, not like Harry can be, but Harry still hadn’t expected him to be able to roll his hips that way, to move like he’s all sensuality and sex, even if he’s giggling at Louis as he does. Louis laughs back, and grabs at his hips to pull him in, and Zayn goes easily so they’re moving together like they’ve done it a thousand times. They look so good together, moving like that, and Harry can’t look away for all he wants to. But then Zayn catches sight of Harry, and he smiles. It catches on the light again, and Harry can’t help but go.

“Harry!” Zayn exclaims again, pulling away from Louis so he can grab Harry’s wrists and tug him in. “Dance!”

“Dance for me, minions!” Louis yells out, a hand still brushing against Zayn, and Niall does a jokey little twirl that has Louis gesturing for him to do it again. Niall laughs and does, but Zayn’s looking at Harry.

“You gonna dance for me?”

Harry’s never been great at dancing, but he does a little shimmy that has Zayn snorting and echoing it with his own, and now he looks like the silly awkward boy Harry was expecting, stumbling and jerky with drunkenness. The crowd presses in, and maybe Harry takes advantage of it, sliding forward so instead of getting lost like Louis and Niall, he gets pushed into Zayn, until there’s barely enough room to do their silly dancing in the mass of bodies.

Harry catches Zayn’s hips with his hands—just to steady himself and Zayn, Harry assures himself, even if he’s pretty sure he’s lying, but Zayn just gives him a quick glance up through his lashes and slides in, reaching up to wrap his behind Harry’s neck.

It’s not a joke anymore, not a silly thing. Now it’s back to that sensuous roll of his hips, the smoke and sweat smell of him, the way they move together, better, Harry thinks, then him and Louis, better than anything. The way Zayn’s solid against him, pushing wherever Harry does. The way he looks at Harry, gaze dark and hot and a little wild, right before he gets his hands into Harry’s hair. He pulls him down, and then they’re kissing, wet and sloppy and their hips are still moving together and Zayn’s doing that same groaning thing he did before but he’s licking into Harry’s mouth and Harry can feel his erection pressing against Harry’s thigh, hard as Harry’s aching dick, and it’s _everything_ , the beat pounding heavy in his head and the summer heat wrapped around them.

“So—fucking—hot,” Zayn mutters, breaking away to trail his lips down Harry’s jaw, his fingers still twined in Harry’s hair and pulling just enough. “You always were, fucking Harry Styles.” He bites into Harry’s neck, just above the collarbone, and Harry can’t help his low moan.

But—“Not here,” he says, and when Zayn bites again, “Zayn! There are people.”

“Fuck them.” Zayn says it into Harry’s skin and he shivers with it, but he’s enough himself that he manages to get his tone under control.

“Or you could fuck me,” he purrs, and they’re pressed together so tightly he can feel Zayn jerk at that. “Just not here,” he goes on, and then he’s pulling Zayn through the crowd himself, and he catches a glimpse of Niall’s thumbs up and Louis’s wide-eyed face, suddenly pale, before they’ve broken out of the crowd, and Harry can pull Zayn over to a tree out of the way and kiss him again, pressing him against the bark. Zayn pushes back, arching into him, his fingers digging into Harry’s shoulders and his tongue thrusting into Harry’s mouth.

It’s so, so good, it’s exactly what Harry had wanted those weeks ago when he followed Zayn into that van, his hands sliding under Zayn’s shirt to touch all that skin he had seen and all the heat.

Except—Harry wants to see, their first time. Wants to be able to take his time, to find all the places Zayn’s smile reaches. Wants to be able to do all the things they could have done at sixteen if things had been different. Doesn’t want it to be a hidden thing in the dark. Wants it to be open and brilliant and forever.

“No, c’mon, let’s go back to mine,” he says into Zayn’s mouth, “My mum’s not home, we can take our time—”

“No, here.” Zayn lets go of Harry’s shoulder, slides his hand down to Harry’s ass and pulls him close. “Don’t need time.”

“Home,” Harry says, as firmly as he can with Zayn’s tongue sliding down his chest—and Zayn lets go.

Lets go, and something seems to go out of him, and he presses back against the trunk of the tree, away from Harry. His look isn’t that dark, hot thing anymore. “Fucking Harry Styles,” he breathes. “Fucking hell.”

“What?” Harry doesn’t get it, why have they stopped? Why aren’t they going to his car, he isn’t that drunk, he wants to go home and tumble onto his bed and see Zayn spread out across his sheets, why aren’t they doing that?

“Why do you have to make everything so difficult,” Zayn says, and despite the accusatory tone he looks young, somehow, eyes wide. “I can’t.”

“Can’t? But—”

“I’m still me,” Zayn cuts in, utterly nonsensically. His head is tilted, so the light filtering through the leaves catches on his cheeks and eyelashes. “And you’re still you and we’re still us and it’s still it, even if you like to think you aren’t, and everything is circles in the end.”

“You don’t make sense!” Harry protests, but Zayn shakes his head.

“No, you don’t make sense,” he replies, more sadly than anything, and pushes at Harry until he moves, then slides out from between him and the tree, and leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry does not sleep much that night. It’s not unusual, for him to have trouble falling asleep as he figures out his schedule for the next day, but this is worse. It’s half playing over the moment of Zayn leaving in his head, and half playing over the kiss, and he’s caught between arousal and confusion and anger and none of it is good for his head. What had he done wrong? He can’t figure it out.

The sleepless night means he wakes up late, which puts him in an even worse mood, because then he’s all sleepy when his mom wakes him up to head to the café, where he usually has time for a run and is refreshed and ready to start the day. And studying’s even worse; he stares at the words and hears ‘No’, and ‘can’t’ and Zayn’s laughter as he quizzes him.

After an hour he gives up, and heads to Liam’s, because at least Liam will listen to him, even if Harry’s pretty sure he’ll just be texting Sophia the whole time.

“It’s just, I don’t get it!” Liam’s room is very nice to pace—a lot of wide open spaces, not much clutter on the ground. Harry’s has quickly filled up with too many things, which usually he likes, all his clothes and pillows and books and records, but it means when he tries to pace he usually falls over things. Liam’s room has space to pace, and Liam to listen even if he’s on his computer while he does, so it’s clearly better to do it here. “He kissed me. Again!”

“You said,” Liam agrees absently.

“And we were going to—I know we were going to. If I hadn’t said whatever I said, we would have fucked. Or something.”

“TMI.”

Harry ignores him. “Probably something, because it would have been hard to actually fuck against a tree…” Except now he’s imagining it, and that’s helping nothing because it’s painfully hot and did not happen for reasons unknown except now he wants it to happen, wants Zayn with starlight in his smile and on his skin. “But anyway. What did I do?”

Liam types something. Harry really hopes he isn’t, like, live tweeting this or something. Though it would probably get him a lot more followers, because Harry feels a bit like he’s in a soap opera. “He was drunk, wasn’t he? Maybe it was a consent thing?”

That shuts Harry up. He hadn’t even thought about that. Sure, he had been a lot more sober than Zayn—had he been taking advantage? Had he almost—would that have been—but Zayn had started it—still…

“I don’t think—that wasn’t what he was saying? It was a lot of stuff but it wasn’t that?” Harry groans and runs his hand through his hair again. He’s good at this, usually. Good at people. Good at getting people to fit into their little boxes and how they work into his life. Zayn’s just better at breaking out of his box. “I wouldn’t have pushed. I didn’t push.”

“Okay.” Liam is doesn’t look away from his phone, but he is listening, so Harry figures that’s about an even trade. “Are you going to ask him about it?”

“What?”

“It worked last time, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but—” But Harry’s even more confused last time. But this time it wasn’t him pushing. This time, “I didn’t do anything this time.” Last time, yeah, he might’ve sort of been in the wrong, because trying to seduce Zayn out of nowhere after rejecting him four years ago was kind of not nice, he can admit it. But this time he did everything right. Zayn’s the one who pushed him away for no reason.

“So you aren’t?” Liam glances up from his computer. “Really?”

“Really.” Harry sits down next to Liam and crosses his arms over his chest. He can be stubborn. He can wait. Zayn will have to come to him this time. “Really.”

\---

Harry means to stick to that. He really does. For a whole week he throws himself into his work, gets four more chapters done and hones his resume and starts drafting essays \\. He spends time with his mom, who teases him about the boy but lets it go when he pouts, and instead tells him all about how Gemma’s doing and the vacations she wants to take and where she’s planning to retire to when she can finally get away from here. He doesn’t look for Zayn, doesn’t talk to Zayn, doesn’t seek him out at all. He thinks about him—probably too much, thinks about him not only when he sees something and wants to tell Zayn about it, but also at other times, when he gets hit by a memory of how Zayn’s lips had felt against his, how his hands had twisted in his hair. But it is Zayn’s turn to apologize, so he does not look for him.

He might, maybe, make sure he’s easily approachable—going to the pool, the park, wandering Main street, studying by the window at the café. So if Zayn wants to find him, it’d be easy to.

He doesn’t, though. Harry hasn’t even seen Zayn since that night. He’s not at the pool or the park or anywhere, even if sometimes Louis and Niall are. It’s…disconcerting. He hadn’t noticed how much he was used to looking at Zayn all the time until he doesn’t have Zayn-smiles in his life all the time. He hadn’t noticed how dry his LSAT prep is when he doesn’t have Zayn as a reward for when he’s finished.

“Hey, man.” Harry looks up from his book— _Gone Girl_ , not at all because Zayn had mentioned offhand how much he liked it one day in the bookstore as he fiddled with the display—to see Niall grinning down at him. His eyes are as blue as the pool next to them, it’s really astounding.

“Hey.” He grins back, because even if Zayn is ignoring him and Louis hates him, he likes Niall. Niall is nice and was totally for him and Zayn hooking up.

Niall sits down on the chair next to Harry without asking, kicks his feet up, and folds his hands behind his head. When he doesn’t say anything for a minute, though, Harry has to ask, “Why’re you here?”

“Zayn and Louis are off doing Zayn and Louis things before Zayn goes to work,” Niall replies easily. His head’s tilted back to the sun, even if he’s almost as white as he was when Harry first met him. “Can’t always take that, so I thought I’d come here.”

“Zayn and Louis things?”

“Yeah. Usually it’s comics or being twats together, but I think now it’s a lot of cuddling and smoking and Louis telling Zayn he’s not an idiot.”

Harry swallows down the jealousy as much as he can. Zayn likes to cuddle. He’s not surprised. Or at least, Zayn likes to cuddle Louis. “Why aren’t you there, then?”

“Because I do think Zayn is being an idiot. You’re not some idiot high schooler anymore, going to ditch him again or anything.” Niall grins. “No use telling him that, though. He’s not going to talk to you.”

“What?”

“He’s not going to talk to you,” Niall repeats. “He just won’t. So if you’re waiting or something, it’s not going to happen.”

“What?” Harry presses his lips together, swallows again. “What do you mean?”

Niall shrugs, and opens his eyes. He doesn’t look at Harry, though—when Harry glances over, he’s gotten eye contact with Jen across the pool, a pretty blonde in a pink bikini. “Just, Zayn doesn’t really apologize for things. Or not first, anyway. Doesn’t matter to me, ‘cause it’s no skin off my neck, but you should see him and Louis fight. Takes them weeks to make up. And I think makeup sex always had a lot to do with it finally happening.” His grin is growing, and it doesn’t look, like, predatory or flirtatious or anything, but Jen smiles back too, and hers is flirtatious. Harry watches with interest, as he tries not to think about Zayn and Louis make up sex, or possible him and Zayn make up sex. Is Niall magic?

“I can introduce you,” he offers, in case Niall isn’t magic.

“Really? That’d be great.” He winks at the girl, then Harry sits up and smiles and waves, and she shrugs, tosses her hair back, and walks over.

Harry introduces them, and makes a bit of small talk with her about college and whether she’s still doing lacrosse, and then he feels pretty third wheelish and anyway the pool isn’t much fun without anyone there, so he pulls on his shirt and leaves.

It’s a short wander to Main St. Not that Harry’s going there in particular, because he doesn’t have any reason to be there, but he happens to end up there because that happens. Often. It’s the center of town, so clearly he’s there a lot. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.

Because he really, really didn’t do anything wrong. Not this time around. And he doesn’t get Zayn, doesn’t get why Zayn needs cuddling now when he was the one to push Harry away. Because, what had Niall said? That he was going to ditch him again? Why would he do that? It’s just Zayn being wrong, and he’s not going to apologize for that.

Purely by chance— _purely_ —he wanders down to the edge of town, to the bookstore. Zayn could very well not be working. He is, of course, because he always does Sunday afternoons, but he could have switched. Harry wouldn’t know. Harry doesn’t care, because this is on Zayn. If he happens to walk by the bookstore, that is pure coincidence.

If he happens to look in, well, it’s Zayn. He can’t not look.

Zayn is inside. He’s sitting at a stool at the counter, with those thick-rimmed glasses on that are more attractive than anything has a right to be, and he’s looking at a book with that utter absorption Harry remembered from high school, how he could look at something and be so utterly focused on it nothing else mattered. Harry’d always been in awe of that, how he wrapped himself in a book and let everything else flow around him, without trying to change it or dive in. He had looked at Harry like that, liked nothing else mattered outside of the two of them, not where they were going or how, just them and now. He still looked at him like that, sometimes, in between the smiles and the laughter and the Zayn-ness of him.

Harry’s in the store before he knows it. Zayn glances up—then his eyes widen bambi-big, and his eyebrows contract, but Harry is talking before Zayn has a chance to. “So here’s the thing. I don’t know what you want, but I want this thing between us—and there’s a thing, don’t even say there isn’t, we both know there is,” he warns. Zayn bites down on his lip and doesn’t say anything. “This thing between us,” Harry restarts, “I wanted us to go back to mine because I don’t want it to be a one-off. I really like you, and I think we’ve got something good going here, and so I think you should probably go on a date with me.” A date, yes, that sounds like a good idea. He’s glad he thought of that.

“Harry, I—”

“Please?” Harry gives him his best puppy dog look. Zayn’s still biting at his lip.

Zayn shuts his eyes, and Harry’s heart stops. He looks like he’s stealing himself to do something. To say no. To shut the door on them again when Harry’s so ready this time, when Harry wants him so fucking badly. He lunges forward, grabs Zayn’s wrist right below where he’s holding the book. Zayn’s wrist is thin beneath his hand, his skin burning hot, and Harry can feel his pulse. “Please?” Harry repeats. He’s not above begging. “You’ll get a free dinner out of it.”

This close, he can see Zayn swallow, see how his Adam’s apple moves under his throat. “You know you can’t bribe me with food all the time,” he says, but he doesn’t move his hand away.

Harry gives him his biggest, dimpling smile. “So you’ll go on a date?”

Zayn’s lips curve. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s pleased and fond despite the worry. “Yeah,” he says, and bites at his lip again. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

\---

Harry spends a good hour getting ready for The Date. Not that he doesn’t usually spend a long time getting ready for dates, but this needs to be on point. He needs to convince Zayn that this is worth doing, and he basically just has this date to convince Zayn to go on another one. So yeah, he doesn’t care who laughs at him—not that anyone will know, other than his mom, who adds commentary from the doorway—he needs time to settle on the perfect outfit. He does, eventually, skinny jeans and a dark long-sleeved tee he pushes the sleeves up on. He debates for a while about headscarf or no headscarf, and after a long deliberation with his mom he settles on none, because it makes him look more formal and also sometimes Zayn makes fun of his scarves, and he’s pretty sure it’s teasing but he’s not sure.

He doesn’t particularly rush to get to Zayn’s house on time, though it feels like he should—feels like he should do the whole high school, meet the parents thing, make small talk with Zayn’s parents while Zayn fusses a bit more because Zayn is always late, then have his breath catch when Zayn finally walks down the stairs. He considers doing just that, after he texts Zayn to let him know he’s there, but he’s still busy debating whether or not he should go in when the door opens and Zayn comes out. He’s got his back to Harry, and he’s yelling something that ends with, “Shut up, Wali!” before he laughs and closes the door behind him.

“Sorry,” Zayn adds, as he gets slides into the passenger side of Harry’s car. “Sisters.”

Harry makes a sound that he hopes convey his deepest agreement. Gemma didn’t come home this summer, and he is so very thankful she wasn’t there to laugh at him this evening. “They’re not that bad.”

“Nah, ‘course not.” Zayn laughs, settles back as Harry pulls away from the curb. By necessity, Harry doesn’t spend much time looking at him, because seeing him relaxed in the seat of his car is not going to make his resolution to be a gentleman any easier. “But it’s weird being home, yeah? Like, after being away and not having to report to anyone.”

“You mean Louis doesn’t keep track of where you are all the time?” Harry asks, and tries to keep a bit of the bitterness out of his voice. Not that he is bitter. Just, every time he’s tried to spend more time with Zayn over the last few days Louis’s been there, usually with Niall. He even crashed their bookstore time, and that’s irritating. He’s not even doing anything. He’s just always _there_.

“What? No.” Harry can hear the question in Zayn’s voice. Of course he hasn’t noticed. “Like, I know what it looks like here, but Lou and I aren’t usually quite so codependent. Nor Niall. It’s just, they don’t really know anyone else here, and all.”

“Okay.” Harry’s pretty sure that’s not all it is, but this is a first date, and that’s not the time to get into all of this. “Yeah, I know what you mean, though. Like, my mom spends all her time tracking what I’m doing, it feels like. Think she goes through my LSAT book to make sure.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Zayn tilt his head. “You and your mom were always really close, yeah? Like, all Gilmore Girls and shit.”

“I’m not Rory, I don’t think.”

“Oh, I dunno.” Zayn grins. “Ivy league, ambitious, sexual tension with someone you went to high school with…”

“You’re no Paris, though. And I’m not a reader.”

“No, but you do tell your mom everything, right? It’s sweet.” Zayn’s legs are stretching out in front of him, and Harry very firmly tells himself to look at the road instead. “Like, I’m close to my mum, but I don’t tell her half what I do Lou.”

“I don’t tell her everything,” Harry objects. He’s not quite sure why, because he loves how close he is with his mom, usually. And it doesn’t seem like Zayn is looking for a justification. But people always want one, seem to think it’s weird how close he is to her. “Didn’t come out to her first.”

“Oh?” Zayn’s voice changes, somehow. “She didn’t know you were gay before you did? That’s what my mum said. ‘Course, I was never really not out.”

It’s only then that it strikes Harry that this could be an awkward subject, between them. But he started on it, and it’s something Zayn ought to hear, probably. “No,” he says, glancing down at his knuckles on the steering wheel. “I told her Thanksgiving freshman year, and she was pretty surprised, actually.” Not disappointed, he thinks now, though he hadn’t been sure then, or disapproving. Just surprised.

“You did do a good job not giving it away,” Zayn agrees, evenly.

“You knew.”

“I guessed.” He shrugs. “I’m good at it.”

No one else did, Harry wants to say. No one else saw through me like you did, no one else looked past who I was trying to be to who I was. But that’s too much, he knows, and he can’t scare Zayn away, and there will be time to say that later, so instead, he changes the subject to _Gone Girl_ , and that gets them to the restaurant.

It’s a nice place—not too nice, Harry’s not made of money or anything—but a good date place. He’d actually went on a couple dates here in high school, which adds to the whole nostalgic mood. Except not too nostalgic, Harry thinks, as they walk up to the door. This is better than high school. There were only girls in high school. And Zayn never looked like this. But now, Harry steals looks as the walk, and he rushes ahead to open the door for Zayn and watches Zayn roll his eyes fondly as he walks through. Zayn’s in his dark jeans and tank, with a dark blue plaid shirt open over it. Like Harry, he’s got his sleeves rolled up, but Harry’s pretty sure Zayn isn’t lusting after his wrists like Harry is. Or if he is, he’s not showing any signs.

Zayn bites at his lip when they’re seated, and he glances at the menu. “This is nice,” he says, slowly.

Harry’s pretty sure he gets where the hesitance is coming from. He’d thought about that—prepared his arguments. “I’m paying,” he says, firmly.

“No you’re not. We split.”

“It’s a date. I’m taking you out, so I pay.” Harry lets his lips curve into a slow, smirky smile. “You can pay next time.”

It gets a chuckle from Zayn, and Harry counts it as a win. “You that sure there’ll be a next time, Styles?”

The candle is making shadows on Zayn’s skin in the dim restaurant, highlighting the sharpness of his cheekbones and lines of stubble. Harry gulps down air. “Yep,” he says, cheerfully, so Zayn’ll keep smiling always. “I will knock your socks off, don’t you doubt it.”

“I would never doubt your dating prowess, Haz,” Zayn drawls.

It’s a joke, Harry knows it’s a joke, just teasing, but still. He leans forward so he can cover the hand Zayn’s resting on the table with his. Zayn’s smile stills, and the look he gives Harry is somehow through his lashes despite them sitting down and being at the same level. It’s questioning and a bit unsure and so very very pretty.

“Your socks are the only ones I want to knock off,” he says, just loud enough to be heard over the low murmurs of the restaurant. “No one else’s.”

Zayn’s still chewing on his lip. “Harry…”

He’s doing that thing where he pulls away, Harry can see him do it, and it’s too early in the date for that. So Harry draws his hand back and gives him a dimpling smile, the one that disarms everyone so they don’t notice he’s getting what he wants. “What should we get, then?” he asks, brightly. Like they hadn’t just had a moment. “I can never decide, so we should probably just split two things, because that’s easiest.”

It doesn’t quite work all the way—Zayn’s still got something complicated going on in his expression—but he lets himself be drawn into a discussion of beef versus chicken versus mushrooms (mushrooms are not meat Harry I don’t care what you say) without saying anything else.

The rest of the dinner is great, in Harry’s humble opinion. It’s not quite a normal first date, because he already knows so much about Zayn. Not all of him, obviously, so there’s still plenty to talk about. Plenty to laugh and banter and joke about, whether it’s Harry’s dislike of croutons—‘they’re the wrong texture!’ ‘well, like, isn’t that the point?’—to how Zayn talks about his latest design project, the way his face lights up and his hands start to wave around even though he’s holding his fork. Plenty to look at, even, because Harry hadn’t thought there were more ways Zayn could look hot but his face in candlelight is something different. It’s sharper than starlight, a little bit more closed, but also intriguing, the shadows it makes, enough that Harry gets distracted at least once from cutting his chicken because he’s busy staring at the hollows of Zayn’s cheeks.

But it’s more than that, too. More than just like their bookstore afternoons, he thinks, because there’s…intent. It’s like the air between them is charged, now that neither of them are denying the tension that’s always been there. Now Harry can keep his hand on Zayn’s wrist, and their feet can brush against each other under the table, and Harry doesn’t feel guilty for thrilling at the sidelong looks Zayn keeps giving him. Now Harry’s basically required to hold out his fork for Zayn to try the chicken off of, and to watch as his tongue flicks out to lick his lips clean. And when Zayn gives him a bite of his pasta in return, Harry doesn’t make any bones about moaning over it (it is good, though maybe not _that_ good) so Zayn’s eyes go a bit dark and he can see him swallow.

It only gets sticky again when the check comes, and Harry takes it. The look Zayn gives him then isn’t so coy, but more challenging, like he had looked when Harry had asked him about comics. Harry tries to give him his most stubborn look back.

“We already fought about this,” Harry says, firmly. “We can’t fight about it again, that’s boring.”

It makes Zayn laugh, like it was meant to, and he doesn’t say anything when Harry gives his card to the waitress. “So we can fight about something else?”

“Only adorable things,” Harry decides. “We can fight about which of us is cuter, for instance. I think it’s me.”

It gets another laugh, and Zayn tilting back in his chair, like he would tip back on two legs if it wasn’t a nice restaurant. “I’d probably agree,” he admits, and Harry dimples at him.

“Fine then. I’ll say it’s you.” He peers at Zayn for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, sorry. You’re hot, not cute. You’re not fluffy enough to be cute.”

“You haven’t seen my hair in mornings,” Zayn retorts, which only gives Harry an imagined flash of sleepy morning Zayn in a t-shirt and boxers, his eyes soft and his hair a mess, blinking awake next to Harry as they’re squeezed together in the tiny dorm room beds. Maybe Harry leaning over to kiss him awake, then to get his hands in his hair and really mess it up… “You’re certainly fluffy.”

Right, conversation. Not fantasizing. “I know.” Harry pats his hair. At least it isn’t the wild curls he’d had when he was sixteen. Now it’s at least more cool, if still unmanageable. “It’s my curse.”

“Nah, I always liked your hair,” Zayn counters lazily. His smile is just as lazy, with just a hint of a smirk. Harry takes a sip of water in defense against the banked heat in it. “Wanted to know what would happen if I pulled on it.”

Harry nearly spits out the water, and ends up choking on it. Zayn only laughs as Harry sputters. “You fucker!” he rasps, when he gets his voice back. “You timed that on purpose!”

Zayn shrugs, unrepentant. “I know, I’m an awful mean person. My sisters would agree.”

“Everyone would agree,” Harry mutters, and takes back the check with a murmured thanks. He pointedly does not look at Zayn while he signs, then pushes the check back towards the edge of the table, so he’s taken more or less by surprise when Zayn’s hand appears on his wrist.

“You’re not really mad, are you?” he asks, quietly, only looking at Harry through the edges of his eyes, like he’s really worried about it.

Harry shakes his head. “You’re an asshole, I always knew that.” He grins comfortingly. “Never made me like you less.” It’s made me like you more, he doesn’t say, because he’s not sure Zayn is ready for something like that, but it’s true. He always liked how Zayn didn’t pander. How he was so unapologetically him.

Zayn just grins back, so Harry pushes back his chair. “Should we go?” he asks, and Zayn nods.

\---

The ride home is quiet. Harry’s very sure to always obey the speed limit, and to come to a complete stop at every stop sign, because it’s the only way he can think to draw out the night farther. He hadn’t planned more than dinner—wanted to start out slow—but now he doesn’t want to give Zayn up. Zayn doesn’t say anything either, but he keeps looking at Harry, and it’s a comfortable silence.

But eventually they do have to arrive at Zayn’s house, and Harry pulls up to the curb. He jumps out and runs around before Zayn can stop him, opens his door for him, and sticks his tongue out when Zayn rolls his eyes. “My hero,” he drawls, and Harry shoves at his shoulder.

“I am,” he agrees, and almost trips over the sidewalk if Zayn didn’t catch his arm.

He keeps holding his arm—not quite his hand, but definitely skin contact—as Harry walks with him up the sidewalk. There’s a light on, in the house, in what Harry thinks is the living room. It really is like high school Harry thinks, and stops just before they get to the door.

“Someone’s waiting up for you,” he points out. His mom probably is too, if he’s honest, but she’s different.

Zayn shrugs. “Yeah, they do that,” he agrees, and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. He doesn’t like go of Harry.

“They?”

He snorts out a laugh. “My mum, Wali, Louis, maybe Niall if they bribed him. Dad won’t, but that’s just ‘cause he’ll hear it all from mum tomorrow.” Zayn rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide how much it amuses him. Harry likes that about him, that for all his mysterious face he doesn’t hide when he loves things. Isn’t ashamed of loving things.

He likes a lot of things about Zayn, really. He likes Zayn’s smile and his laugh and the way the porch light lights up his skin. Likes how he bites at his lip when the silence creeps around them again.

“Harr—” he starts, but Harry doesn’t let him finish. He knows how first dates end; he knows how this first date is going to end. So he cuts Zayn off with a kiss.

It’s not like their other kisses, for all Harry dreams of them sometimes, the long dirty drag of them, wet and sloppy and messy, tasting of weed and vodka. No, this isn’t like that, not a hook-up with a hot guy in a van or an accidental friend hook-up at a party. This is him, and Zayn, and he’s going to make this be right.

So he kisses him softly, doesn’t even open his mouth, just fits his hand behind Zayn’s head so he can’t run away and kisses him as gently and sweetly as he knows how. He hadn’t been sure how Zayn would react, if it would make him run—but he replies in kind, presses back with a gentle pressure that isn’t demanding anything. Just a first kiss on a moonlit night, to end a good date.

When Harry lets Zayn go, pulls back, Zayn’s eyes stay closed for a moment, like he’s savoring, and Harry hides his grin. He’s going to get more of those.

“Thanks,” Zayn says at last. There’s a noise from inside the house. Maybe they were watching. Harry hopes they were watching. Hopes Louis was looking out the window. Then he remembers Zayn is standing right there, and he refocuses. Zayn’s gotten his cool back, he thinks, has that lazy half-lidded look on his face like he’s about to go for a cigarette. “See you tomorrow?”

Harry fights back the urge to kiss that cool out of him. “Yep!” he agrees. “Bye, Zayn.”

He leaves first, because he’s not going to wait around for Zayn to open the door, he’s not that much of a cliché. Though maybe he stays sitting in the car when the door closes behind Zayn, takes a second to press his fingers to his lips and savor for himself. He thinks he deserves it.

\---

Harry’s braced for weirdness the next day, braced for Zayn pulling away or it being awkward or them not knowing how to talk to each other—but that doesn’t happen. Instead it is like normal, Zayn shooting Harry a text midway through the afternoon asking him—and Liam—to hang out with them, Harry replying with a quick yes before calling his mom to tell her he’s not going to be home for dinner, then Liam to argue him into going with him.

Harry manages it through a combination of wit, charm, and a lot of begging, and also probably the fact that Harry’s pretty sure Liam actually likes Zayn and his friends and might have gone even without the begging. His mom is harder, because she doesn’t actually say it but he knows she’s worried he’s spending too much time with Zayn for a summer romance. But he manages that too, because he will one day be an excellent lawyer, and so a few hours later he closes his LSAT book and goes off to find Liam to head to Zayn’s.

It’s pretty clear they’re not actually in the house when Harry and Liam walk up to Zayn’s, because the van is parked behind the house and is rocking like there’s movement in.

“If the van’s a rocking?” Liam asks, raising his eyebrows at it. Then he glances at Harry. “You didn’t—”

“No.” Not that Harry wouldn’t. He’s fantasized a time or two about what would have happened that first day if Zayn hadn’t stopped them. “I think it’s Louis’s van, actually.”

“Like that’s stopped you.”

Harry grins without saying anything, and trots over to rap his knuckles against the back of the van. It opens immediately, with a rush of weed-filled air that has Harry coughing when he gets it full in the face.

“Already started,” Liam says. It should be a question, but it’s not, and he sighs as he climbs in after Harry.

“Liam!” Louis grins from where he’s—beneath Zayn? Zayn’s definitely straddling his waist, leaning over him so his wrists are pinned on either side of his head, and they’re both breathing heavily, sloppy smiles on their lips. Harry digs his knuckles quickly into his thigh rather than say anything. No. No, he won’t be that person. There’s totally an innocent explanation for this. And it’s not like he has any claim on Zayn anyway. They went on one date, he and Louis have hooked up—hotly—a lot. He doesn’t—he can’t—just because he’s thinking in terms of next year doesn’t mean everyone is. He’s found that most people he dates aren’t looking quite so far ahead as him. “Harry,” Louis goes on, and his grin is sharper. He squirms, and Zayn shifts his weight so he’s more on him, keeping him pinned. “Glad you could make it.”

“We can leave if we’re interrupting,” Harry manages to get out, with a good attempt at a laugh. Zayn’s grinning down at Louis, and they’re closer than Harry’s managed to be with Zayn yet, except for that time by the tree where he somehow messed everything up.

“Please don’t.” Niall shuts the door behind them, and settles back into his chair. “They’re being impossible.”

“Niall!” Louis scoffs, “My dear sweet Niall, how dare you! We are never impossible, are we Zayn?”

“Never,” Zayn agrees. He’s talking slower, like he does when he’s high, in that rough voice that Harry kind of wants to wrap around himself. “We’re very…possible?” He pauses, wrinkles his forehead as he thinks.

“You’re both the worst,” Niall informs them, and gestures for Harry and Liam to sit, then passes the joint to Harry. He looks away from where Zayn is still sitting on Louis, to where his fingers wrap around the papers, then brings it to his lips and inhaling.

“We’re easy,” Zayn says, suddenly, and all four of them look at him.

“We are at that,” Louis laughs, and does an exaggerated roll of his hips that has Zayn pursing his lips down at him.

“No, as, like, the opposite of ‘impossible’,” Zayn explains. “Cause we’re not impossible to deal with, we’re easy to deal with. It makes sense, yeah?”

“Sure,” Louis agrees, but Harry knows—is sure—he’s not imagining the way his smile softens when he grins up at Zayn. Or maybe he is imagining it, in the smoke and the dim light and the way Zayn is still sitting at him.

“Yeah,” he pipes up, because he has to say something to get noticed, and Zayn lets go of Louis wrists to twist around to look at him, a smile blooming across his face.

“Harry.” he says, like he just saw him. He was thinking very hard; he might have missed Harry coming in. But still, Harry almost shivers at the way he says his name, like it’s a statement all in itself.

“Hey,” Harry replies. It’s not enough, obviously, but it’s something, and it’s better than going over and pulling him off of Louis and finishing what they started.

“Oh, get a room,” Louis drawls. Zayn looks down at him, like he’s surprised he’s still there.

“Sorry,” he says—to Harry, he thinks, hopes—as he clambers off of Louis. Louis’s arms twitch, but he doesn’t do anything as Zayn comes over to settle in his own bean bag, taking the joint easily from between Harry’s fingers. When Liam shakes his head, he takes his own drag. “He was being a shit, so.”

“Yeah, but you always end up on top, don’t you Malik?” Louis retorts. Zayn chuckles.

“Only when I want to, babe,” he says.

Louis turns to Harry. “Oh, you want him to, trust me, I—”

“Penalty!” Niall calls, and Louis stops talking to glare at Niall. Harry can’t decide if he’s glad or not. He’d kind of like to hear why Harry wants Zayn on top. But he also really kind of doesn’t want Louis to be the one who tells him.

“What?” Louis demands

“TMI,” Niall replies, easily.

“Amen,” Liam adds, and Niall grins at him.

“See? Majority—no—Zayn?”

“Plurality”

“Right, plurality.”

“Though not really,” Zayn goes on. “’cause Louis’s pro, and I don’t care, and Harry…” he trails off, giving Harry a sidelong look. No. Harry definitely doesn’t want to hear what anyone else has to say about him.

“Harry’s with them,” he announces. Zayn’s lips tilt up, like he knows why, and it curls hot in Harry’s veins. Louis’s glare isn’t quite so satisfying, but it’s not unsatisfying either.

“See?” Niall says. “Two minutes for TMI, go.”

“You ruin all my fun,” Louis snaps, but he groans as he stands up, cracking his neck. “No orgies while I’m gone, lads.”

“We’ll try to resist,” Liam retorts, and Louis laughs as he hops out of the van.

“Hey.” Zayn’s foot knocks against his, and Harry looks back at him. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Harry knocks back. “Have a good night?”

“After I was finished being interrogated,” Zayn says, and hands the joint to Niall. Is his beanbag closer to Harry’s than it was? Harry thinks it is. Maybe Zayn is doing it by magic. “God, they’re vicious. You?”

Harry grins. “Sleepless,” he says, trying for a purr. “Could have been better.”

“Do you two need a penalty too?” Niall asks, laughing, and Harry mimes locking up his lips with a wink at Zayn. “Come on, Liam, can we form our own club?”

“Of what? Heterosexuals?”

“Of non sex-obsessed people,” Niall decides. Zayn snorts.

“Like you’re one of those,” he teases, and Niall laughs and doesn’t deny anything as he takes the joint from Zayn. They all watch him blow out the smoke rings, easy as pie, the calm settling into Harry like the pressure of Zayn’s foot against his ankle.

“I hope you all had no fun without me!” Louis says, coming back in. the light is almost blindingly bright behind him, as the sun sets, so Harry squints.

“None at all,” Zayn agrees, easily, and Louis flashes him a grin. When the door closes, it feels dark again.

“Well, I took my penalty,” Louis goes on. “I need a reward.” He reaches out to Niall to take the roach from between Niall’s fingers.

“Isn’t it not a penalty if you get a reward?” Liam muses, and Niall laughs.

“Nah, here—”

“No.” Zayn puts his hand on Louis’s knee before he can grab the joint. “It’s Harry’s turn.”

“Zayn—”

“You got skipped ‘cause you were in a penalty,” Zayn insists. “So it’s Harry’s turn.”

“Bullshit!” Louis lets his arm drop so he can glare at Zayn. “Come on, Zayn.”

“Those are the rules,” Zayn says, and moves his hand to cross his arm over his chest. Louis’s staring at him, and there’s something that’s not angry in that look. If Harry had to guess, it’d be fear, but that’s probably the weed talking. “You made them, you’ve got to stick to them, or else they aren’t rules.”

“Fine!” Louis snaps. He crosses his own arms over his chest, and sticks out his chin. “Fine.”

Harry looks between Zayn, who nods, even if he’s giving Louis confused looks, and Niall, who’s holding the end of the joint.

“Here,” Niall offers it to Harry. Harry takes it, finishes it off before dropping the last of it in the ashtray. No one says anything. Harry probably should, but what’s he supposed to do? He’s not apologizing to Louis, and he doesn’t have anything to say to Zayn right now that doesn’t include climbing into his lap, and…

“So,” Niall says at last, “How about that Derby game?”

It gets Liam to talk, enough that the silence is broken. But Louis barely talks for the rest of the evening, which means Zayn’s throwing him looks and not at Harry, even if he keeps on ending up closer and closer to Harry until by the end their feet are in a pile in front of them. Harry thinks he could be okay with this being the new normal.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m not awake,” Zayn warns as he slides into the passenger seat of Harry’s car that Saturday. Harry just grins at him. He knows he’d been lucky to bargain Zayn getting out of bed before three, let alone in his car at nine. But it’s a forty-five minute drive to the place three towns over he wants to go, and they need to get there early, and Harry thinks he doesn’t mind grumpy early morning Zayn, who immediately slumps back in his seat and closes his eyes.

“That’s okay, we’ll get you coffee,” Harry assures him, and pats him once on the knee before pulling out onto the street. “But no breakfast, not yet.”

It’s another quiet drive, even once Zayn has a massive black coffee clutched in his hands. He holds it like it’s gold, and the look on his face when he had taken the first sip had gotten Harry thinking all sorts of things it was too early for. But still, it’s nice. Zayn’s always been good at quiet—had never needed to talk, to prove himself. Had never needed Harry to, either. So now it’s still nice, to drive with The 1975 playing quietly in the background as Zayn rests his head against the glass and takes slow sips of his coffee, both of them stealing glances at each other that sometimes catch.

He looks nice, of course, because he always does, but there’s something about him today that’s softer, less leather-jacket RISD hipster, with all sorts of edges grown since high school. Today his jeans are looser, his white t-shirt is simple. He still looks like he stepped out of a magazine, because Harry’s pretty sure he always does, but now it’s almost boy-next-door model. Which he was, Harry guesses. Sort of, at least.

By the time they pull into town, Zayn’s finished his coffee and has perked up enough to make fun of Harry for his hat, flicking the edge of it as they step out onto the street into blinding early-morning sunshine.

“What are you, urban farmer?” Zayn asks. He’s squinting against the sun. Harry, he must point out, is not, because his face is shaded.

“Maybe,” Harry retorts, readjusting the straw brim. “It’s a theme, you’ll see.”

“Oh god, are we doing a mini-WOOF or something?” Zayn teases as he falls into step behind Harry. They have to park a little ways away, in a tiny side street that might just be an alley, because there’s never any parking near the lot—and it means Harry can keep Zayn in suspense for a little longer, which he’s enjoying probably more than he should, the way Zayn keeps dropping little suggestions and trying to figure out from Harry’s face if he’s got it right. “Because I’ve got to tell you, me and physical activity…”

“We were in gym together. I know,” Harry retorts, and grins a little to think about it, how Zayn had used to glare at the various balls and sticks they were given as sports equipment like they might bite. He’d always tried a different tack, being just enthusiastic enough to get away with being pretty awful. Gym had always been the one thing he couldn’t manage, no matter how much he tried, but he’d learned long ago it wouldn’t actually matter for him in the long run, when he had cried to his mom about how he was picked last and she had told him how he’d be so much bigger than those kids one day, so much bigger than a gym.

“Like you were any better.”

“Never said I was. Left that to Liam and the others.”

“Right,” Zayn says, a little shorter than he has been, and when Harry looks over his brows are furrowed again. Not like he’s mad, just like he’s thinking, and not necessarily about nice things.

So Harry turns around so he’s walking backwards, and makes a silly face at him. Zayn’s not supposed to have to think about bad things today. He needs to prove to Zayn that he never has to think about bad things when he’s with Harry. “Not that they were always good,” he adds, and starts to ramble on about that time Liam and Andy had tried to play volleyball and had somehow gotten wrapped in the net by the time the gym teacher had come over.

It gets Zayn laughing, and he’s still laughing when they turn another corner to the lot. “Tada!” Harry spreads his arms wide.

Zayn pauses. “A farmer’s market?”

“Yeah! ‘s really cool, like the biggest one in the state.” Harry grabs Zayn’s wrist to pull him forward, into the crowd of people filing between the rows. “And it’s like an art festival too, there’re like crafts and things too, and it’s really cool.”

Zayn shakes his head as he follows after Harry. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Yep!” Harry laughs.

Like it always it, since Harry and his mom started going every weekend when he was a kid, it’s crowded, but not too much—enough that there are plenty of people around, that everything keeps moving and there’s energy everywhere, but not so many they can’t breathe or look at the stalls. The sun is warm, hot enough that Harry rolls up the sleeves of his plaid shirt and fiddles with the top button, but it just makes it nicer as they wander, like the sun approves of them. There’s enough to do Harry doesn’t even feel guilty for all the work he’s not doing. Harry oohs and aahs over the vegetables in one stand, the bright cherry red tomatoes and crisp cucumbers, as Zayn laughs—Harry will cook for him one day and make him eat his words—and then it’s Harry’s turn to laugh as Zayn eyes a store with hand-carved figurines, running his fingers over the wood grain with a careful, delicate touch that makes Harry wonder what it would feel like against his skin.

They stop for pastries at one stall—Zayn insists on buying, but it’s cheap enough that Harry doesn’t feel bad (there is a reason he chose here)—and they eat as they walk, Harry trying not to make a mess of himself with his almond croissant as Zayn eats his cinnamon bun, ripping off bits and then sucking the stickiness off his fingers deliberately, which only makes Harry go a little cross-eyed and Zayn smirk. Harry gets him back by licking the sugar off his lips, Zayn’s eyes fixed on his tongue.

They keep wandering after that, through little tchotchke stands and cheese stores. They stop for a while at a flower stand, and Harry looses track of Zayn as he sniffs at herbs. He only notices he’s back because there’s a hand pressing on the small of his back, and a presence at his side.

“Where’d you get to?” he asks idly, turning to face him.

Zayn bites at his lip, then reaches up to slide a daisybehind Harry’s ear, his fingers brushing against Harry’s cheek. It makes something warm light in his stomach, or maybe in his chest, and he doesn’t think he’s ever smiled bigger.

“You’re a sap, aren’t you?” is all he can say, though, because the other—I think I love you, I think I want you in the sunshine and the starlight and my bed and my life and for forever—might not go over well yet. He does, though; he wants him in the crisp fall air and wants to share gloves in the winter and to see him glare at the rain in the spring.

Zayn glances away, and Harry thinks he can see a blush on his cheeks, even if it doesn’t show up well. “Thought it fit the theme.”

“It does,” Harry agrees, and when they leave he reaches out to grab Zayn’s hand. Zayn doesn’t just let him, he flips his palm and intertwines their fingers, and oh Harry will explode from this new warmth.

Before he does, he sees a jam stand, and pulls Zayn over there. He smiles cheerily at the middle-aged woman behind the counter, and lets go of Zayn’s hand to slather some raspberry jam on a cracker.

“Here,” he says, and holds it out for Zayn to take. Zayn just leans over and bites at it instead. Harry’s pretty sure he’s seeing stars, or maybe that’s just Zayn as he chews, swallows, then takes another bite, his lips brushing against Harry’s fingers.

“That’s delicious,” he says, like he didn’t know what he’d done, that Harry’s nearly dying. “You should try some, Harry.”

There’s only one response to that, really, and Harry takes it, kissing the taste of the raspberries off his lips.

“Yeah,” he agrees, smirking a little at the ways Zayn’s eyes had widened. He could be sweet, too. “Delicious.”

When he turns back to the counter—because now he clearly has to buy some, if only to remember the taste on Zayn’s lips, and also because it really is delicious—the woman is beaming at them.

“You two are adorable, you know?” she says, slipping a jauntily packaged jar into a plastic bag.

Zayn darts a look at Harry, but Harry just grins and wraps an arm around Zayn’s waist. “I know, aren’t we?” he agrees, and both Zayn and the woman laugh as he pays.

They roam around some more after that, munch on some berries that stain their lips and tongues red. Harry picks up a scarf in one stand after intense deliberation that has Zayn rolling his eyes, but then he waits as Zayn looks at a poster painted with some sort of superhero on with more lust than Harry’s pretty sure he’s ever looked him with, and doesn’t even say anything when he ends up not buying it.

“Oh, look!” Harry says, as they turn a corner into the last aisle they haven’t seen yet, and drags Zayn to a stand with a bunch of easels set up. There are a lot of people working on them—some of them, glancing over it, look professional, and some are doing finger paintings.

Zayn addresses the person who seems to be running this. “What is this?”

“Art for Everyone,” the man explains. He looks like an artist, all in black with dark hair with a sweeping widow’s peak. He might be handsome, if Zayn wasn’t standing next to him. But he’s welcoming enough, and definitely enthusiastic as he talks. “It’s a thing, now, where we go to places like this and provide supplies and a place to do whatever sort of art you want. No charge, though donations are welcome.” He glances at them, gives them a quick, assessing up and down that feels a little judgmental. “Interested?”

“You should draw me,” Harry decides, and Zayn bites at his lip. “He’s going to draw me,” Harry tells the man, who shrugs and points them to an easel.

“You do want to, right?” Harry asks, as Zayn settles down.

Zayn glances up at him through his eyelashes. “Yeah, I do,” he agrees. Harry doesn’t think about those words _at all_. Not about tuxes and rings and the big field filled with friends and family.

“So,” he says instead, fluttering his eyelashes as he pulls up a stool, “How do you want me?”

“However you’re comfortable,” Zayn replies. It’s not flirty, which is a little disappointing, but Harry gets over it pretty quickly, because Zayn’s looking at him with this intense, focused gaze that Harry’s pretty sure he could get off on alone as he settles more comfortably on the stool. It’s the look he gives things that he’s really interested in, like comics and books and now Harry, and it makes the warmth in Harry turn to fire.

It doesn’t take Zayn long, really, which is good because Harry’s not good at not doing something for any period of time, even if Zayn tells him about five minutes in he can take out his phone—“It’ll be more natural, that way.” That keeps Harry amused for the next half hour, finally sits back with a sigh.

“Done?”

“Yeah.” Zayn gives the sketchpad a bit of a face, then shakes his head. “Or, like, it’s as good as it’ll get with these.” He gestures to the pens, which look perfectly good to Harry but he’s not an artist, what does he know.

“Can I see?”

“Isn’t that why I did it?” Zayn grins, and rips two pages out of the sketchpad before handing it one of them over to Harry.

“What’s that?” Harry asks, as he takes the page. The other artists are all absorbed, but the guy in charge is watching them with vague interest.

“Nothing, just, like, another try. Look!” It’s impossible not to, then, and Harry flips the page over to see himself.

It’s a lovely pen and ink drawing—Zayn’s really good, not that Harry didn’t expect it, but still. Harry’s tucked on the stool, looking down at the phone in his hands. He’s smiling, what he’s pretty sure is his cheeky grin, and a dimple is just starting to show. Harry’s not sure he made that expression in the last half hour, but it’s just right. It’s how he feels when he thinks of Zayn.

“Zayn, it’s—”

“It’s rough, I know,” Zayn says, quickly. “Had to—”

“It’s great. You’re great,” he follows it up with, and gets one of those shy smiles. Harry wishes he could draw, too, so he could capture that, but he’s pretty sure a stick man couldn’t do Zayn justice.

“Can I take a picture?” Both of them jerk when there’s another voice, but it’s just the guy in charge.

“What?” Zayn asks.

“We do this thing,” the guy explains, “Take pictures of the artists and their works, tweet it and shit for publicity. Do you mind?” He weighs the phone in his hand. “You’d be great publicity.”

Harry’s grins at that. But Zayn bites his lip. “He’s the model, you should take it with him,” he says, nodding at Harry. Harry rolls his eyes.

“Both of us,” he decides, and drags Zayn into him with an arm around his waist. He holds the picture in front of him with the other hand. “Smile at the camera, Zayn,” he says, and then does as he’s told.

The guy snaps off a few pictures. “Thanks.”

“Can we see?”

“Sure.” He holds out his phone, and Harry leans closer to see on the small screen, Zayn pressing against him so he can look over his shoulder.

They’re good pictures, of course, because they’re both photogenic. Harry’s grinning at the camera, looking as happy as he’s ever been; Zayn’s got a smaller smile on, almost a smirk, and even if he looks about halfway between looking from Harry to the camera.

“Can you send this to me?” he asks the guy, who shrugs, and lets Harry send it to himself. He’s keeping that forever. It can go in their wedding album.

They leave after Harry carefully folds the drawing and puts it into his bag, the guy nodding them on their way. Zayn takes Harry’s hand as they go, or at least he brushes their hands together enough that Harry gets the hint and grabs his.

“Can I see the other one?” he asks, as they meander back towards the car. There’s a two o’clock movie that he figured he could convince Zayn to let him pay for, and he’s sure they can compromise on something there. He’s not exactly planning on watching the movie if he can at all help it.

“Hm?”

“The false try. I want to see your, whatchamacallit, your process.” He wants to see everything about Zayn.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “It was a sketch, there isn’t a process.”

“Zayn,” Harry whines, and stops walking. “I’ll make a scene, don’t test me.”

It gets him a long breath that Harry’s pretty sure is at least seventy-five percent amused. “Fine.” He digs in his pocket, smoothes out the creases before he hands it over. “But it’s not anything, more just for fun because you were sitting there…”

It’s another drawing of Harry, obviously, but even though Harry knows it was pen and ink just like the other ones, it looks like they shouldn’t be. That one was delicate, a figure study or whatever. This one’s big bold lines and movement, sorta like what’s in Liam’s comics, showing Harry with his hat tilted over one eye and his phone held out like a sword. Above it, in jagged block letters, it says _En Garde!_.

“Told you, it’s just silly,” Zayn says quickly. “Just—”

“Why’d you do two?” Harry asks. The other one had been pretty, probably technically really good, but this one’s…dynamic, is the best word Harry can think of. He’d like to think this one’s how Zayn saw him, even if the other one’s prettier.

“Wanted one you’d like,” Zayn mutters. He’s not looking at Harry, staring down at his hands instead.

“I like them both,” Harry announces, and adds that to the bag before he grabs Zayn again. This time he pulls them even closer, slides his hand around Zayn’s waist again. He doesn’t care how many looks they get, he just wants to be close to Zayn. “Come on, there’s a movie theater around here.”

“We’re never going to agree on a movie, Harry,” Zayn warns, but he’s looking at Harry again, so everything’s good.

“That’s what compromise is for, Zayn, honestly,” Harry retorts, and starts them walking again towards the theater.

They’re about halfway there, and still arguing about movies, when Zayn’s the one who stops. “Wait,” he says, as Harry’s pulled to a halt next to him. “Come on, this way.”

“No, that car’s—”

“I want a tattoo,” Zayn interrupts, his chin jutting mulishly.

“A tattoo?” It’s impossible not to glance down at his arm when he says it, to see the ink climbing up his sleeve. “Now?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get one for a while but there’s no parlor in town. Come on, it’ll be better than a movie neither of us will end up liking.”

“We could find one!” Harry protests, “And there’s not another set starting until four—”

“Trust me,” Zayn breaks in again, with a quick flash of a grin, “You want me to get a tattoo right now.”

“Why?”

Zayn leans in close, stands on his tip-toes a bit so he can whisper in Harry’s ear, his voice a deep low rumble that runs through Harry. “You’ll see.”

“That’s not fair, Zayn,” Harry complains, but he lets Zayn drag him back a block. They could still make a later movie. He wants to know why he wants Zayn to get a tattoo.

That tattoo parlor Zayn finds is a nice one, Harry has to admit. Clean and professional looking, and the girl at the counter is friendly and has a lot of pretty awesome tattoos, which is always a good advertisement. The guy she leads them to—apparently there’s not much call for middle of the day tattoos—is a little less comforting, big and burly and covered in dragons, but he listens seriously when Zayn sketches something on a piece of paper, then shows him where he wants it, on the back of his left shoulder, opposite the tiger. Then Zayn takes his shirt off, and Harry’s a little distracted by that.

“Want him to hold your hand?” the guy asks, in a surprisingly high voice for such a big guy.

Zayn grins. There’s something lighter about him in here, almost anticipatory, like just being in a tattoo parlor has him energized. Harry’s not sure he’s ever seen him like this, but he likes it as much as the steady calm, this vibrating energy. It’s almost what he has when he’s playfighting with Louis, Harry thinks with a bit of pride. “Only if he needs it,” he replies, and throws that smile at Harry, the big blinding one where his eyes crinkle and it takes over half his face.

Harry blinks, then remembers the question. “What—oh, no.” He thinks for a second, but by the time he realizes his missed opportunity to keep holding Zayn’s hand, it’s too late, and he’s already laying himself out on the chair.

It’s a quick process—the tattoo Zayn’d apparently had in mind, a stylized sun, with the rays like triangles around a circular center, isn’t large or complicated, and Harry mainly takes up the time by chatting with the tattoo artist, who has three kids, the oldest in college, and likes minigolf and Thai food. Zayn doesn’t say much, but Harry can’t look away. This is a view he hasn’t seen before, somehow, the long line of his spine, the way his muscles ripple when he moves, the broadness of his shoulders somehow brought out, the way he lets out a little breath every time the gun touches his skin. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but fuck it really really is.

He glances away to get himself under control when it’s done, studies the sketches on the wall as the artist gives Zayn aftercare instructions that they both probably know by heart, then follows Zayn out. Zayn’s still quiet as he pays, and then as they go onto the streets.

“So, movie?” Harry suggests brightly. They have time to make one, he thinks, even if they’ll be early. They’ll have to kill some time; maybe he can get Zayn to draw him again.

“Nah.” Harry glances over. Zayn sounds different, his voice rougher, and he’s not even taking Harry’s hand again. It feels colder, suddenly. “Let’s go back to your car.”

Shit. Had the tattoo somehow ruined things? What had he done, had he said something wrong, that Zayn wanted the date to end? Had it been the movie? Had that somehow been a dealbreaker, that they couldn’t agree on the movie?

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, and tries to keep the dejection out of his voice. He’ll just do better next time, come up with something more impressive. He can do that, that’s what he’s good at, making plans. Maybe something he knows Zayn will like, like a visit to a comic book store, except that sounds really boring and not very long. He’ll come up with something though, something brilliant that’ll make Zayn see.

He might not even get that chance, though, given how fast Zayn walks them back to the car, like he’s in such a rush to get away from Harry. Everything had been going so well, too, it had been basically perfect, and now they’re back to square one. Maybe he can make it better during the ride back. He can be extra charming, Harry decides, as he slides into the driver’s seat and shuts the door, he can take another day from studying and—

Then suddenly he’s got a lapful of Zayn, his arms braced against the seat on either side of Harry’s shoulders as Zayn’s full weight settles on to him, and Zayn’s lips are on his and he’s kissing him frantically, like he needs it or else he’ll die.

It’s enough of a surprise that Harry freezes. It doesn’t deter Zayn, just starts him kissing all of Harry’s jaw, until Harry manages to get a hand around his hair to tip his head back. Zayn’s eyes are a little glazed, the pupils blown, and now that Harry feels him he’s basically shaking.

“What—”

“Told you you’d like me getting a tattoo,” Zayn gets out, before he goes back to kissing Harry’s neck, his teeth nipping at the skin until Harry can’t help but groan. Was he like this the whole walk back? “Always so fucking horny after.” He bites harder so Harry squirms under him, tilting his head so Zayn can have better access. Zayn pushes back down, his hips rocking, and Harry can feel how hard he is.

“You’re not mad?” Harry manages to get out. His hands are moving of their own accord it seems, grabbing at Zayn’s ass to pull him closer as he grinds down.

“Why would I be mad?” he mouths the words into Harry’s collarbone. “Just fucking want you so bad, wanted this for ages, c’mon, Harry.” It’s a constant litany, garbled words that have Harry pulling his head back up to kiss him quiet, and he’s aching for it so bad—until he manages to smash his knee into the dashboard and bites back a not-at-all sexy moan.

It pauses them both, and then Zayn starts to giggle, not quite hysterically, but like he does when he’s high. “C’mon,” he says again, and swings a leg off of Harry to climb into the backseat.

Harry’s always been good at following order. He goes, almost in a daze of kisses and the residual feel of Zayn, clambering over the front seats until he nearly topples onto Zayn, who’s laid down on the seats so his sensitive back is hanging off the edge of the seat.

Zayn doesn’t seem to care he’s managed to be utterly clumsy, tugging him back down to kiss again, wet and dirty, his hand twining in Harry’s hair hard enough that it tugs in the best way, and Harry whines into his mouth and kisses back just as hard. Their hips are grinding against each other now, and the friction feels so fucking good, knowing it’s Zayn there with him, Zayn whose hands are at his ass now, pull him down so they’re even closer. It’s hot and mesmerizing and Harry could do this forever and this is only their second date.

He manages to pull away again. Zayn keeps moving against him, lazy sort of hip rolls that don’t make Harry’s thought process any easier. “Not here,” he says, an echo of that other night. “Don’t want to do this here, not yet.”

Zayn stops. “No?”

“Not no, just—” Harry glances around pointedly, best he can when he’s holding himself up over Zayn. “Want it to be nicer than this, our first time. And, like, it’s our second date.”

Zayn groans, tips his head back for an instant. Harry can’t help dipping his head to lick up that long inviting line, it’s just impossible. Zayn lets out another breathy sound, then looks back at Harry. His lips are a bright, bright red. “Fine then,” he says, and his grin is wicked enough that Harry’s not sure if he’s scared or turned on or both. “Second date, so second base, right?”

Harry should say no probably, but he really doesn’t want to and that doesn’t count anyway and no one’s ever made him forget his plans as quickly as Zayn. “Yeah,” he agrees, and seals it with a kiss that Zayn doesn’t break as he reaches between them to fumble at their belts.

He gets Harry’s pants open first and shoves them away almost angrily, then wraps his hand around Harry’s cock. Harry hisses out a breath at the contact, at the fireworks it sets off behind his eyes, then can’t help his whine or his hip thrust as Zayn pumps once.

There’s nothing soft or sweet or romantic in the way Zayn jerks him off, but Harry still isn’t going to last long. He’s been waiting for this for too long, Zayn’s too good under him, looking at him with that intense concentration like he had when he was drawing him, his lashes clumped with sweat and his cheeks flushed red, and he’s rutting against Harry’s thigh like that alone could get him off, so Harry can feel the press of his dick against his leg.

He comes with a cry that’s almost a sob and drops his head onto Zayn’s chest as he breathes through it, inhaling the sweaty-smoky scent of him.

It takes him a few seconds of blissful ‘so that just happened’ to realize Zayn is still quivering under him, basically vibrating, and he’s still making sort of aborted thrusts against Harry. Harry would roll them over but he doesn’t trust himself not to hurt both of them in the process, so he pushes himself up far enough that he can balance on one hand and gets his own hand in Zayn’s pants.

Zayn arches at the first brush of Harry’s fingers with a loud, “Fuck!” and Harry’s cock twitches in interest again at it, but he ignores it to keep stroking Zayn. He doesn’t go for finesse either, not when Zayn is so clearly already on the edge, holding himself off by sheer willpower even though it was him that was so desperate, and sure enough it only takes a few more strokes before Zayn’s coming too, mixing oaths and Harry’s name as he does.

He collapses after, his eyes closed and his breathing normal again. Harry just watches him. He doesn’t even care that he’s got come on his hands and probably on both their shirts and they’re going to have to find a way to clean this up. It’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, Zayn blissed out like this, better than when he’s loose and high on weed, or giggling drunk.

Because he can’t not, he leans down and kisses Zayn, and this time he does do sweet. When he pulls back, Zayn’s eyes are still closed, but he’s smiling.

“So,” Zayn says, one eye peeking open. “Sorry we didn’t see the movie?

Harry slaps at his chest with his clean hand and laughs. “Think I’ll live.”

\---

Harry’s halfway to singing when he gets home, still buzzing from the way Zayn’s hand had rested on his thigh the whole way home, from Zayn’s kiss before he had dropped him off, a slow lingering thing before he had gotten out of the car (“so no one’s snooping, Haz”), that lasted long past the simple kiss good-bye it was supposed to be. He thinks he could sing, if he could think of a song that would do this feeling justice, this bliss.

Of course, he also isn’t watching where he’s going, so he stumbles over the boots piled by the door and catches himself against the wall with a low oath that can’t bring him down.

“You okay, baby?” his mom calls, in the tones of someone who’s said it a lot, which she has, over the past twenty years.

“Yep!” He calls back. He is better than okay. He is wonderful. Brilliant. He’s incandescent, he thinks he’d glow if the light turned off. He toes off his shoes, heads upstairs to where he knows she’s lounging on her bed, and throws himself down next to her.

“Sound it,” she grins, the same smile he has. “Good date?”

“Brilliant.” If he closes his eyes, he can still feel the pressure of Zayn’s hand in his, the warmth of the summer sun, the heat of Zayn’s gaze. “We went to the market, wandered around, and he drew me, and then he got a tattoo—”

“A tattoo?”

“Yeah, he wanted one.” She lets out a breath that he knows, and he opens his eyes to shoot a look at where she’s sat up on the bed, her long hair swinging around her face. “What?”

“Nothing.” She shakes her head. “So, does this boy have a name?”

“Zayn.” Harry lets his lips linger over the name, savor it.

“Oh, the Malik’s son? Weren’t you friends in high school?”

“Not friends.” Harry doesn’t know how to describe what they were. Soul mates? Star-crossed lovers? “He had a crush on me.”

“And he still does? How sweet.”

“Isn’t it?” Harry grins at the thought. It’ll be a great story one day. Harry’s half planning a recitation of their original project at their rehearsal dinner. “He’s sweet too, mom, gave me a flower and everything.”

“Ooh,” she coos, when he pulls it out form behind his ear where he’d replaced it when they’d found it on the floor when they had come back into the car from the Starbucks bathroom they had snuck into to clean up. “Lovely.”

“I know. He’s brilliant, you’ll love him, he should come over for dinner sometime, so you can meet him. He’s an artist, a proper one, and he’s beautiful, and—”

“Don’t blow him up too big!” she protests, shoving at his shoulder with a laugh. “He’ll never be able to live up to it.”

“He will,” Harry assures her. Zayn could live up to anything. “We’ll figure out a time.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” She pauses, then runs her hand over his head. “but be careful, okay?”

“What?”

“He’s just a boy.” Harry can’t help but laugh, though. Zayn’s not just a boy. He’s never been just a boy. “No, listen to me, baby. He’s just a boy. You can’t lose focus, you know that.”

“I’m not!” Harry protests. “I took a day off to go on a date with a boy I really like, that’s all.” With a boy he loves, he doesn’t say.

“I know, and one’s fine. But you’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately.”

“I’ve been wooing him.” Harry sighs. He refuses to let his buzz die. “I’m getting everything done, mum. Don’t worry.”

“I know. You always do.” She’s smiling again, and running her hand through his hair like she always did, to chase away the monsters. “My bright boy. Going to blaze right out of here.”

“Yeah.” Harry closes his eyes again, and tilts his head into her touch, and thinks of Zayn’s fingers in his. “Always.”

\---

_‘Want to hang out?’_

Harry grins down at the text, probably sappily. He can’t really bring himself to care. He feels sappy. It’s better than any high, riding off of Saturday, and Harry’s carried it with him all through Sunday, which he spent by making up all the studying he didn’t do Saturday and some more, because his mom was worrying, then Monday, where Zayn and Louis went off and did something mysterious he apparently wasn’t invited to, even if—according to Niall, who he found by the pool with Jen again—it was ‘just some comics thing, pretty boring really’. He spends most of Monday studying too, and working on his essays, and it’s only then that he really realizes how little he’s gotten done this summer, despite what he’d planned. He’s not behind, exactly, because he has stuck to his schedule, but it’s still so little, and he was sure he was going to do more.

By Tuesday, when he still hadn’t seen Zayn, even if they had texted off and on, the buzz was starting to fade. Harry’s gone to Liam’s in an attempt to distract himself, because he thinks he might scream if he writes one more word of his Columbia essay and if he goes home his mom will ask about it, but he thinks even Liam’s gotten annoyed at him scrabbling for his phone every time he gets a text.

“Who’s that?” Liam asks, from the bed. Given that Harry’s not currently having a freak out, they’re listening to the latest band Harry found, an indie touted as the new The 1975 but really are more like a bad knock off of MGMT. Or Harry is, while Liam fusses around on his twitter.

“Who do you think?” Harry retorts, and replies with,

_Sure!!! When do you get off?_

“Dunno, not sure I’ve ever seen you make that face before.” Liam shrugs when Harry looks at him, surprised. He didn’t think he was acting differently than he usually did in a relationship. Well, a bit more intensely, but it’s Zayn. Zayn makes everything feel more intense, or maybe calmer, or maybe both at once. “Just saying.”

Harry opens his mouth to press, but gets distracted momentarily by his phone buzzing, _You asking, or scheduling? :p_

Harry snorts, replies with _Get off work, you git. Didn’t mean that…yet ;)._

“See, that!” Liam sits up to point. “You don’t—care.”

“I care!”

“Not like that.” Liam shakes his head knowledgably. “It’s not a bad thing, I’m just saying. And Zayn’s not exactly your type.”

“I don’t have a type.” _4:30 today, have to stay a little late. Park after that?_ “You mind if I leave at 4?”

“No, go ahead. And you do. Not that I’ve seen all of them or anything, but they’re always…” Liam wrinkles his nose, thinking. It’s difficult for him, Harry knows, and says as much. Liam glares, then goes on, “They’re, like, preprofessional. And don’t last long.”

Harry ignores the last part. “Zayn’s going to be a professional! Art’s a profession.” _Sounds good! See you then xx_

“Not like that. Not like, the smooth sort.” Liam shrugs again. “It’s sweet, I just didn’t expect it.”

Harry pauses, as a text flashes on his screen, just _:)_. “Neither did I,” he admits. He hadn’t expected this, when he came home this summer. He’d expected to study and write essays and fuck around at the pool. “Do you think, like, it’s bad?”

“What do you mean?”

Harry stares down at his phone. “That I don’t usually get serious, or whatever. I won’t…I don’t know. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“Then you won’t.” Harry lets out an exasperated exhale, and Liam sits up, and grabs Harry to pull him into something that’s half a hug and half a headlock. “Haz, there’s never been anything you haven’t been perfect at. You’ll be good at this, too.”

“Except for gym,” Harry retorts, fighting to get away, and Liam laughs and lets him go. It makes Harry feel better, a bit. Except he’s wrong. Harry was never perfect with Zayn. But Liam doesn’t know that.

\---

He’s waiting in the park at 4:30, and fiddles around on his phone until 4:45, when Harry hears Zayn’s laugh and looks up. He’s coming down the street, his arm over Niall’s shoulder and Louis’s around his waist with his fingers resting on Zayn’s hip. They’re not holding hands, though, which Harry got to do, even if they are pressed awfully close together.

Still, it’s brilliant to see him, even if it’s only been three days, feels like something relaxes in him, and he can feel how widely he’s grinning as the trio come up to him.

“Hey,” Zayn says, smiling that shy smile that always sends shivers down Harry’s sides.

“Hey,” is all Harry can think to say in response. It’s not brilliant, obviously, because Zayn doesn’t have anything to say to him, just bites his lip and sort of looks at him in a way that makes Harry incapable of saying anything.

“Oh, just make out and save us the nausea,” Louis snaps into the silence. Harry jumps—he’d almost forgotten he was there—but it gets Zayn to laugh.

“Sorry about them,” he says, nudging Louis with his hip. “I couldn’t shake them.”

“Never will,” Louis agrees, with a quick, hard look at Harry.

“I just wanted to come to the park,” Niall adds easily.

“Don’t put yourself down Niall, you wanted to protect Zayn’s honor too,” Louis retorts, and lets go of Zayn to grab Niall’s hat and put it on Zayn’s head.

Zayn takes the hat off and puts it back on Niall without commenting, like it’s a normal thing. It probably is. Harry thinks briefly of trying to get Zayn to wear his hats, but then he tries to picture Zayn in his straw hat and it’s too ridiculous to even be entertained.

“What’s so funny?” Zayn asks, sidling over as Louis and Niall bicker.

“Trying to figure out if I could get you into my straw hat,” Harry admits, and Zayn giggles.

“Good luck with that.” Zayn darts a glance at his friends. “If we go now, they might not notice.”

“Really?”

“We can only hope.” Zayn gives him a quick grin, and grabs his wrist to pull him down the path.

They only get about four paces before there’s a wild laugh and arms slung over both their shoulders. “Didn’t think you were ditching us, did you, lovebirds?” Louis laughs.

“No, never,” Zayn replies, heavy on the sarcasm. “Wouldn’t ever imagine I could do that.”

“Oh, don’t lie, you love us.” Louis says it firmly, a definitive statement. His hand is sort of digging into Harry’s shoulder, but Harry can’t think of a good way to dislodge him.

“Sure, Lou,” Zayn drawls. “Now go bother Niall.”

“It’s not bothering,” Louis shoots back, drawing dignity on like a cloak. But he presses a hard kiss to Zayn’s cheek before he gives Harry a smirking looks and drops off of them to disappear behind them, and then it’s just them again.

“I really am sorry,” Zayn adds, after glancing over his shoulder to ensure Louis and Niall are, actually, a ways away from them, Louis apparently trying to convince Niall it is a good idea to jump in the pond (it’s not. Harry had done it, on a dare, when he was sixteen. It was cold and gross. He should probably tell Niall, if only to thwart Louis). “I didn’t mean—they weren’t supposed to come.”

“It’s fine. I mean, they’re weird, but I don’t mind them.” Much. Niall, at least. No, that’s not fair. Harry thinks he could probably like Louis too, if Louis didn’t so obviously not like him. And if Louis would stop touching Zayn like he did, like he had free rein over his body, over things Harry doesn’t have permission to touch, or at least not yet. “As long as you come with them.”

It gets him a hint of a smile, and their fingertips brush as they walk closer together. Harry’s sort of pointing them towards the lawn at the middle of the park, but not with any real intent. He’s happy to just wander around and smile at the people he knows as they pass, chatting with Zayn about everything, feeling him next to him. It’s not quite a date, but Harry thinks he could get used to it.

He’s midway through debating if grabbing Zayn’s hand will make him freak out when Zayn perks up. “Hey, didn’t you promise me ice cream if I went to Maddie’s party?” He jerks his chin over towards a stand near the fountain at the center of the lawn, surrounded by kids and their parents.

“Nah, don’t think so.”

“You did. You should buy me ice cream.”

“You enjoyed that party,” Harry objects, not for any real reason other than he wants to keep talking to Zayn always, “So you should buy me some, really.”

Zayn’s smile turns a little wicked, and Harry almost blushes, at the memory of Zayn’s body grinding into his. He doesn’t, though, because he doesn’t blush, and that memory is cut by the memory of Zayn leaving. “I did,” Zayn agrees. “Think it’s your turn to pay, though.”

Harry lets his smile turn just as wicked. “Bet I could pay you back.”

“Bet you could,” Zayn’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, and Harry can’t help but follow the motion. “But seriously, I want ice cream. Want some?”

“Can’t say no to ice cream.”

“That explains your figure,” Zayn teases. “I’ll be right back, then, yeah?”

“I’ll be waiting.” Harry tries not to think of that as symbolic, as he stands there and watches Zayn trot across the lawn, ignoring the sidewalks so he can walk straight to the ice cream. Harry doesn’t bother to pretend he’s not watching him walk away, admiring how his jeans hug his ass and hang off his shoulders.

He’s about halfway there when a Frisbee comes hurtling at him. Harry gasps, but he manages to deflect it, and spins to glare at the thrower—only to get tackled, an instant later, by a massive chocolate lab who hits him in the shins and makes him stumble back. Harry would have fallen over, but being Zayn, he catches himself, then immediately crouches down to pet the dog, his smile bright as the sun as the dog throws itself at him, licking his face wildly.

“That’s not ice cream,” Harry mutters, trying not to pout. It’s not that he’s jealous of a dog, or anything. That would be stupid. He just wants to spend time with Zayn. And maybe he should have done something with pets before this, maybe they could go to a pet store or something as their next date…

“Yeah, he does that,” Louis says, as he and Niall come up to Harry. He gives Harry another one of those sharp looks, that make Harry feel like he’s somehow not measuring up to some standard he doesn’t know. “Goes all melty. With dogs. And cats.”

“I do the same thing with babies,” Harry admits. The owner, a good-looking man in his thirties with thick sandy blonde hair and thicker thighs, has come up to the dog, and now Zayn’s saying something, his hands still moving over the brown fur. It’s a lovely scene, really. They’ll need a dog, Harry thinks idly. He likes dogs. Well, he likes cats more, but he likes dogs well enough, and Zayn would clearly like one. Then they’d need a lawn, probably, somewhere for the dog to run around in, because Harry doesn’t want to mistreat the adorable shepherd they’ll get, something big enough that it’s not yappy but not so big it takes up all the room in the house.

House, fuck. Harry chokes on the thought. He’s never wanted a house. A house belongs to this town, to this place, and he’s not supposed to stay here. He’s supposed to get out, not get trapped in a place like this. Go to a city, New York or LA or San Francisco, Harry doesn’t care, but somewhere bigger than here. But Zayn wouldn’t like that, probably, probably wants something smaller and a little quieter, for all he’s got all the sharp edges the city requires. They could compromise, but he’s never even thought about compromising this before. He can’t compromise it. It’s been what he’s been supposed to do, what he’s wanted to do, since he was born.

“Harry!” a voice calls, and Harry’s head jerks around. A girl’s picking her way over him, pretty enough with dark hair and a red polka-dotted sundress. Jenna, Harry thinks vaguely. Jenna Malone? No, that’s 30 Rock. Jenna something. She was on the… field hockey team? No, volleyball, he remembers. Definitely volleyball. And maybe yearbook?

“Hi!” he says back, and gives her a big hug to make up for not actually remembering her name. But not too long, because he remembers her not being the nicest person, usually. He thinks he remembers her making some of the jokes he would fake laugh at, about fags and nerds and things like that. He had only just managed to get out of going to prom with her. “How are you?”

“Good! Enjoying the summer.”

She glances at the other boys, and Harry smiles. “This is Niall, and Louis.”

“Hi!” she gives them each a long, lingering once over. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jenna.”

“Hey,” Niall grins. Louis just nods, his eyes narrowing. They narrow further when her smile turns back to Harry.

“So how have you been? We haven’t talked at all this summer, I didn’t even see you at Maddie’s party”

“Well, everyone was there, it was hard to see anyone, wasn’t it?” Harry points out. Over her shoulder, Zayn’s still talking to the dog owner, looking up at him with a brilliant smile that Harry knows is mainly because of the dog, but still. He’s never gotten that smile, he doesn’t think. He could buy a dog. But he doesn’t want a dog. “So really, it makes sense you didn’t see me. But I was there.”

“Too bad. But we should catch up. What’re you doing now? Some friends and I are chilling by the pond.” She gives Niall and Louis another lazy, appreciative smile. “I’m sure you all would be welcome.”

Two sets of blue eyes turn to Harry. “Oh, that’s nice! But we’re here with someone else, we have to wait.”

“Who?”

“Zayn.” It’s out before he can think of it, but he regrets it almost instantly. She hadn’t liked Zayn, he thinks, or he had been the butt of her jokes, or something.

“Who?” she repeats. Of course she wouldn’t remember him.

“He’s…” he hesitates. They haven’t even talked about it. What if he says the wrong thing and Zayn freaks out and leaves? What if he doesn’t, and Harry forgets about the plan? What if Zayn comes over and she starts being awful again and he leaves anyway? “He was that artsy kid, remember? Middle-eastern look, cigarettes?” He gestures over his shoulder. Zayn’s stood up now, and is looking very intently at the dog owner. Did he look that intently at Harry? He can’t tell.

“Oh yeah.” She raises both eyebrows. “He got hot.”

“I know,” Harry agrees. There’s no arguing that.

“But he was such a geek then,” she muses, tapping her chin. “Remember all that comics stuff? So weird, kinda gave me the creeps. But he must have outgrown that, right?” She smiles in Zayn’s direction, but he’s not looking. Next to him, Louis snorts.

“No,” Harry replies, and he probably shouldn’t feel this fond, because the whole comics thing sounds risky and impractical and like he doesn’t want to be anywhere Harry would want to be. “He’s still the same.”

“Pity. Wonder if he can string two sentences together now,” she goes on “Remember how he used to stammer?”

He’s certainly having no trouble now, Harry thinks, with the way he’s talking to that guy, who is really standing a little closer than he has to be to Zayn. Not that he cares, or has a say.

“Yeah,” he agrees, because it’s always easiest if he agrees. Louis snorts again.

“Anyway, I’m sure he’d be fine coming with us,” she dismisses Zayn with a wave of her hand. “I want to talk to you.” Her lips purse together, and she leans forward so her shirt gaps open.

Sometimes, Harry is reminded why he needs out of here. “Sorry, can’t,” he says, as sincerely as he can. “We’ll have to catch up later. It was great seeing you!” he adds, with the sort of enthusiasm that tends to make people not notice he’s dismissing them.

“Definitely,” she agrees. She gives him a tight hug, nods to Niall and Louis, and leaves. Zayn’s done too, finished talking to the dog owner and finishing his trek towards the ice cream truck

Harry takes a few deep, calming breaths. Thank god she’s gone.

“Friend of yours?” Louis asks.

Harry shrugs. “She thought so.”

“Clearly.” Louis gives him another hard look, then grab Niall’s hat and runs away, towards the ice cream stand. Niall gives an exasperated but amused cry, and runs after him, until Louis runs smack into Zayn, who catches him around the waist without dropping his ice cream, then grabs the hat and puts it on his own head, as Louis leans over to whisper something to him.

At least he got rid of her before she could be nasty to Zayn’s face, so Zayn didn’t have to deal with that. He’s really glad he never had to deal with that, in high school. And the other things don’t matter, really. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like they’re actually planning on getting married and moving to a suburb and all that. He’s not actually compromising his life plan. He can still get out of here, and bring Zayn with him. And even if he were—he looks at Zayn, who’s smiling softly as Niall laughs at something Louis said. There are still stars in the smile, in his eyes and his lips and just in him. He’ll find a way to make it work.

“Did you get me ice cream?” he asks, as he rejoins them, nudging into place between Niall and Zayn, and subtly putting his hand on Zayn’s back so Louis has to move. Zayn wordlessly hands him a cone of vanilla-chocolate swirl, and Harry grins his thanks at him, before swirling his tongue around the top of the cone suggestively, just to see if Zayn reacts.

He does, but not in a good way. He looks away, out at the lawn.

“Actually,” he says, slowly, “We’ve got to go. My mom just called, she needs me home.”

“She—”

“So sorry,” Louis cuts Niall off. Harry’s pretty sure he isn’t, really, and is equally sure he isn’t hiding that. Of course, Harry is hiding his face falling any better.

“Really?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Zayn rubs at the back of his neck. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“We can walk out together,” Harry suggests. That’ll give him a little more time, to fix whatever went wrong.

“I—yeah. Good point.”

It gets them more time, but Zayn’s still quiet, and it’s mainly Niall’s jokes and Harry’s attempts at getting Zayn to talk that fill the silence. It’s not angry, Harry thinks, _he’s_ not angry. Maybe he’s just in a quiet mood, it happens sometimes. Probably that’s it. Maybe he’s sad his mom is calling him back, Harry’d like to think that one was true.

When they get to the edge of the park, where Harry has to go one way to get to his car and the other have to go the other way, Harry pauses, grabs Zayn and tugs him away.

“You okay?” he asks, resting a hand on Zayn’s hip to show his support, and also because he likes how his fingers run over the strip of skin that’s exposed there when Zayn shifts.

“Yeah.” Harry can’t read the twist of Zayn’s lips, but it’s something he thinks he saw years ago, when Harry’d talked about prom or student council or things. He only sees it for a second, though, too quick to identify, because then Zayn brushes his lips over Harry’s cheeks. “See you later, Harry,” he murmurs, and the whisper of his voice and the feel of his lips make that heat in Harry’s chest start again.

But then Zayn’s gone, walking back to his friends, and if the warmth doesn’t quite disappear, but it’s definitely confused.

\--- 

That’s when it starts. Harry’s nearly sure of it. Before that was just, like, normal scheduling stuff. After that, Harry’s pretty sure Zayn’s avoiding him. Not in the way he had after the party, where Harry just hadn’t seen him for a week. Harry sees him now, texts him, messages him silly things and gets responses. But he’s definitely avoiding Harry, and Harry has no idea why.

He thinks about it too, tries to figure out what he might have done to make Zayn think—well, anything—but he can’t. It had been a walk in the park, literally, and Zayn had been flirting and laughing and happy, Harry’s sure of it. And now he’s, well. Not. When Harry can pin him down to hang out, that is, and they’re never alone so Harry can’t really ask. Not when he’s sure Louis would just give him that triumphant smirk because he knows Zayn well enough to know what’s wrong, Harry’s sure. But it’s not Harry’s fault he doesn’t! Harry wants to. Harry wants to know every crack and cranny of Zayn, to know all the secret things he doesn’t tell anyone else. He just—doesn’t. Because Zayn won’t let him. And he can’t figure out what he did wrong, and how is he supposed to fix it?

By the fifth day of this, the confusion and hurt’s started to change into anger. He hasn’t been able to concentrate on his essays all week, and he hasn’t been able to think about anything else, and he’s barely been able to sleep for it.

And worst, it’s becoming obvious, because that afternoon his mom comes into the room just as Harry groans at his frustration and resists the urge to throw his computer across the room.

“You okay, baby?” she asks, smoothing her hand over his hair. He tilts his head back into. She’s the best at soothing away headaches.

“Yeah.” He pauses, then, “No,” he admits, and closes his eyes. “Zayn’s mad at me.”

“It’ll blow over.” She says it so surely, like she knows. She’s always been that sure, and it’s always been great, but Harry isn’t, right now. “No one can resist you, right? My bright boy.”

“It’s been almost a week, though.” A long, long week. “And he’s not talking to me, and he won’t even admit something’s wrong.”

She’s the one who pauses this time, her fingers still running through his hair. “Maybe it’s just coming to an end,” she says at last. “These things happen.”

“Not like this.” Not to Harry. Not with Zayn. “It can’t.”

Another pause. “Maybe it’s for the best, though.” Her voice is as gentle as her hands, enough that it almost lulls Harry out of actually hearing the words. “You’ve been so distracted since you met him, and—”

“The best?” Harry tugs his head out of her grip to spin in his chair so he can look at her. Her eyes are wide, a little shocked, the same green as his. “Mom, I love him! This isn’t for the best!”

“You don’t love him,” she replies, utterly calm. How can she be calm? “This is a summer romance, Harry. You need to remember what’s really important here.”

“He’s important!”

“No, Harry, your future’s important!” She’s not quite calm anymore, snapping out the words, but he doesn’t care. “We’ve had this plan for years, and you can’t jeopardize it over a boy, no matter—”

“I’m not jeopardizing anything!” Harry retorts, and can’t help springing to his feet. He’s taller than her. He hasn’t noticed that in a while. “I’m getting all my work done and I’m perfectly on schedule and I’ve been doing great on all my practice exams!”

“So far,” she agrees, still with that edge in her voice. “But you’ve been distracted this last week, and I know what falling for the wrong boy can do to you, Harry, you don’t want to be stuck here—”

“Why not?” Harry’s yelling now, like he never has. But he’s thinking about that yard and the dog and it’s not so bad, really. “What if I do? Just because you’re mad you never managed to get out of here after dad left doesn’t mean I can’t like it here!”

Her hands are on her hips, and her eyes are spitting fire like that one time he got a C, and Harry doesn’t even care anymore. “Do you?”

“No! But I could. I’ve been studying all fucking summer, and I’ve been wooing Zayn, and just because you couldn’t have both doesn’t mean I can’t.” He slams his computer closed with a thump that has her jumping, and stalks around her to the door. “I’m done for today, because I’ve done everything I wanted to do.”

“Have you—”

“Yes!” he calls over his shoulder, and storms out the door.

Harry doesn’t angry often, so when he does he doesn’t quite know how to deal with it. And he’s certainly never been angry at his mom, who really wasn’t doing anything other than trying to comfort him, doing what they always do. It’s not her fault he’s already on edge because of Zayn, because he has been distracted. But still, he can feel himself almost shaking, like he always does when he gets mad, when someone gets to him. He needs to calm down. He needs Zayn, because Zayn calms him down just by being, even had when they were kids and he had managed to calm Harry down from a bad grade with a shy smile and easy hug.

Of course, when he does find Zayn at the bookstore, he’s not alone. Harry lets out a long breath before he goes in. It’s comforting just to see him, to see how he smiles at Harry when he sees him, but he can’t actually say anything while fucking Louis’s there.

Instead, he puts on a smile, and thinks very quickly of a reason for him to be there.

“So,” he asks, leaning against the counter. Niall’s sitting on the countertop today, with Louis behind the counter with Zayn, nearly sharing the chair with him, and that’s not making anything any better. He’ll let Louis in, who doesn’t balance him and isn’t good for him and who he bloody broke up with, but he won’t tell Harry what he did wrong. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how are you getting back to Providence? You don’t have a car, right?”

“No.”

“Can’t drive,” Louis adds, poking him. Zayn rolls his eyes at him, but fondly, and Louis flicks at his nose. “Always have to come pick him up.”

Harry very carefully keeps his temper. “Well, I think we’ll be able to fit all our stuff in mine, then,” he goes on. It might be a tight squeeze, because he somehow always accumulates a lot of stuff, but it’s a big car and Harry wouldn’t exactly mind having to have a configuration where Zayn had to sit close to him.

“Oh.” Zayn looks down at his hands. “Well, I mean, like, usually Louis drives me, ‘cause he’s got the van, and—”

It’s like he’s not sure he’ll want to be with Harry at the end of the summer, and Harry’s still got the echo of his mom’s ‘just a summer romance’ in his ears, and Louis is grinning smugly at Harry, and Harry just—snaps.

“What the fuck, Zayn?” Zayn jerks to attention.

“What?” Zayn asks, innocently. Not mock-innocently, actually innocently, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Maybe he doesn’t.

“If you don’t want me around, just say so,” Harry goes on. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Niall slide off the counter to grab Louis and pull him away from Zayn, but he doesn’t care. Zayn’s the only thing that matters, looking at him with those big bambi eyes, the same big eyes he had used when they were sixteen and stupid. “You don’t have to keep leading me on.”

“I’m not—”

“Then stop!” Harry runs his hands through his hair, yanks at the ends. He’s just so fucking frustrated. He had so many plans for this summer, had so many plans for Zayn, and they’re all coming to nothing, and he yelled at his mom for this. “Just tell me what I did wrong! I can do it right if you just tell me what it is!”

“It’s not anything!” Zayn shoves back from the counter to stand, his eyes glinting coolly. “I’m taking things slow, is that a crime?”

“You weren’t taking things slow when you dragged me into the backseat of my car,” Harry shoots back. There’s a choked out sound from somewhere in the shelves.

“That’s just sex, not like that matters.” Zayn’s voice is level and Harry hates it, hates how cold he seems. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Zayn like this, cold and angry and distant, like the actual astronomy of the star Harry so often thinks of him as. Definitely not last time, with the way he had pulled away. “Didn’t matter to you when you climbed into my lap ten minutes after we saw each other for the first time in years.”

It takes the wind out of Harry’s sails, a bit, but not much. He’s right, of course, but, “That was before!” Harry retorts.

“Before what?”

“Before—everything!” Harry waves his hand, trying to encompass the everything he means. Before the summer and the starlight and Zayn’s lazy summer smiles and the way he laughed when Harry fed him jam and how he listened when Harry talked. Before Harry had remembered just why saying no had been so hard.

“Before what, before you realized I was hot enough to date now?” Zayn spits back. “At least, in towns where no one we know can see us?”

“What? I—”

“Where they can’t see I’m still the same, right? Still the same weird geek who can’t string two sentences together? Yeah, Lou told me,” he continues, when Harry gapes at him. Of course he fucking did, threw everything out of proportion. “And I am still that person, so fuck off, okay?”

He sits back down heavily, as Harry stares. Why—he knows he’s still that person. He knows it, and he still wants Zayn, still wants everything. He’s been playing this game all summer, been playing Zayn’s games all summer, and he’s losing, and for once in his life he doesn’t know how to change that

So he says the only thing he can. “I love you.” It feels nice to say it, feels like seeing Zayn had that day in the park, like he gets lighter. There’s another one of those sounds from the shelves, and Zayn glances up, his eyes dark and unreadable. But Harry doesn’t know what to do anymore. “I loved you when I was sixteen, I think, even if I didn’t know how to deal with, and I love you now, and I’ve been trying to convince you of that all summer and I don’t know the right way to do it. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I will.”

Then he leaves. He can’t look at Zayn anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Stick around for a short epilogue, up on Saturday!

He can’t go home. His mom is home, and all that anger, and if he sneaks in and avoids her it’ll be him thinking and overthinking and then thinking about Zayn and about that house with the dog and two cats and a baby girl with Zayn’s eyes and Harry’s hair (he doesn’t care if it’s not biologically possible maybe it will be by then) and Harry coming home from work to Zayn with ink on his fingers and a smile in his eyes.

Instead, he goes to Liam’s.

Liam, because he’s wonderful, doesn’t ask questions. He just lets Harry cuddle up against him and watch whatever weird superhero TV show is on his laptop over his shoulder, until Harry feels a little better, a little more like he can face the world. It’s not like it’s the end of anything, really. He’ll fix this, somehow.

“Do you think it’s just a summer romance?” Harry asks finally. Liam pauses the show, like he knows this is going to need all his concentration.

“I don’t know,” he says. Then, because he’s Liam and he can’t not comment, “Do you want it to be?”

“No.” That, Harry’s sure of. “But do you think he does?”

“You know him better than me.” Liam pets Harry’s hair absently. It’s nice. Comforting. Normal. Maybe not as good as his mum, but still good. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the worst. “I didn’t think he did.”

Liam sighs, this time. “Look, I don’t know him as well as you, but I have gotten to know him, and I think we have a lot in common, so maybe I sort of get him?”

“Better than me,” Harry mutters. Liam squeezes his shoulder comfortingly and goes on.

“Well, I wasn’t always the most popular kid, and that’s the sort of thing that sticks with you.”

“He said high school doesn’t matter.”

“Everyone says that.” Liam shrugs. “Pretty sure it’s always a lie.”

“I mean it,” Harry says automatically, and Liam laughs, not meanly.

“And you’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“So you’re not still the golden boy?” Liam asks, and tugs on a lock of hair.

“No!” That’s the problem, isn’t it. He can’t be. Not here, not when he doesn’t know what to do. “But I wasn’t, with Zayn. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, I’ve been trying to be better.”

Liam draws back a little to look at him. “Better than what?”

Harry bites his lip. He’s never actually talked about it before, he guesses. Never liked to. Never liked to think about what it said about him, about who he had been. “He…when we did that project? It was a lot more than just a little thing. We, well, he kinda made a move on me.”

“Oh?” Liam is doing a very good job at pretending not to be astonished.

“And I turned him down,” Harry admits. “I couldn’t—like, I had to be involved in school. I couldn’t.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Liam says again, in a very different tone.

It’s the tone that annoys Harry, that makes him narrow his eyes. “What?”

“So I was right, about high school.”

“No!” No, because Harry’s different now. He’s gotten better. He can do this right. “No, we’ve gotten past that, he said! I can get us past that!”

“Can you?” Harry glares, but Liam meets his gaze evenly.

“Yes.” He can. He has to. “I can. I can do it.”

“Harry.” Liam’s hand is heavy on his shoulder. “You can’t do everything.”

“Always have before.” Except with Zayn, though. He’s never been able to get Zayn right.

“Maybe not this time.” Liam hesitates, then, “You can’t, like, force him to be okay with things. Maybe you’ve got to wait.”

“Or I could—”

“Wait,” Liam says, firmly.

“But what if that’s not the right thing to do?”

“I don’t think there is a right thing to do here.” It’s the worst thing Liam could say, but he’s right, Harry knows. There isn’t anything he can do. He was scared four years ago and now it’s coming back to bite him and there’s nothing he can do, because he’s done everything and it’s not enough. His mom was right. Maybe he can’t have it all.

\---

Harry stays at Liam’s for a long time, delaying facing his mom, just thinking about things. About high school and college and the way Zayn’s fingers had felt on his cheek, sliding the daisy over his ear. About the apartment in the city his mom had dreamed of visiting, and the house with the yard. So when he gets home late enough he hopes his mom’s already asleep, it’s something of a surprise when he sees the van sitting outside his house.

He has a single, painful moment of hope—but then he sees Louis sitting on his stoop.

“What do you want, Louis?” he asks, after he parks the car. He’s tired and sad and doesn’t want to go inside. Then, “And why do you have a sandwich?”

“Oh, your mum gave it to me when I said I was waiting for you. She didn’t sound very pleased with you, by the way, but she went to bed and said that she’ll have it out with you in the morning. And that you should have called.” Louis finishes his sandwich, wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and gives Harry one of his cool smiles that aren’t smiles at all, but are more dares.

Harry doesn’t feel like taking him up on this one. At least he doesn’t have to deal with his mom tonight, though dealing with Louis isn’t any better. “Okay. Why are you here?” He’s too tired to be polite, to beat around the bush. He doesn’t need Louis to gloat, because it turned out Harry broke Zayn too much. Because it looks like Harry isn’t good enough.

Louis stands up. On the porch step, he’s as tall as Harry is. “I don’t like you.”

“I know.” That’s not a secret.

“I really don’t like you.”

“I know.” Harry gives his own mirthless grin. “You’ve also been cockblocking me all summer, though, so I think we’re even.”

“Didn’t work, did it.” Louis doesn’t look mad, at that, not really. Just…resigned, maybe. Maybe even hurt. “He didn’t tell me you hooked up.”

“Sorry.” He’s not, he’s glad Zayn kept that just for them, but it seems like the thing to say.

“Don’t be. It only gets better, trust me.” He smiles again, like a knife. “But if you don’t fucking fix this, you will be.”

“What?” Harry’d figured Louis would be happy he was gone. Happy he’d get his Zayn back all the time, so they could go off and do their secret things and probably hook up and go back to all those things they’d done before him and would do after, all those things Harry wasn’t good enough for.

“He punched a wall after you left.”

“Is he—”

“He’s never gotten that angry at me, not even when he should have, because I can be an asshole sometimes,” Louis goes on. It sounds like he’s swallowed something nasty, but Harry’s still caught on ‘punched a wall’, on Zayn being that angry, on Zayn possibly being hurt. “He’s fine,” Louis says. Maybe he isn’t a complete asshole, “But I know him, and that means he cares no matter what he says, so you have to fix this.”

“I thought you’d be happy I’m gone,” Harry retorts. He failed, does Louis has to rub it in? “Isn’t that what you’ve wanted all summer?”

“Yes!” Louis snaps. “I want you fucking gone, but I want Zayn happy and you make him happy.” He turns to the side, his hands are balling into fists, digging into his thighs. Harry waits, because it feels like there’s more coming. Sure enough,

“It’s not fucking fair!” his voice echoes throughout the night air, loud enough that everyone on the street probably heard it, but even without Harry’s shushing Louis’s next words are quieter, though they still ring in his ears. “I love all of him and you only love the parts you want to and why do you get him?”

“The parts I want to?” Harry interjects. He’ll take Louis yelling at him because he can’t really stop him, but he won’t—he loves Zayn, and he won’t let anyone tell him otherwise, not Louis or his mom or anyone.

“Sure,” Louis retorts. “You love his body and his pretty sketches and maybe even, like, his humor or his niceness or whatever but you don’t fucking care about how brilliant his comics are or how fucking adorable it is when he’s awkward or all the weird shit he says when he’s high or any of that! I do!” His voice is rising again, “I fucking do and it’s not fair!” he repeats, “It’s not fair that he’s so fucking stuck on you that he’s never been able to love anyone else. Love me.”

There’s actual pain in those last words, a hurt that Harry thinks he’s felt in the last month, when he looked at Zayn and he felt so far away, so Harry takes a step closer, to offer some sort of comfort, even though he’s not sure what he could offer when he’s still got everything so mixed up in his head. But Louis shies away.

“No,” he snaps, but it’s halfhearted now. It’s odd, seeing the energy drag out of him. He’s actually not very large, Harry notices for the first time. He drops his head to drag his hands over his face, with a groan that sounds like it’s dragged out of him. When he emerges, “Look, I’m going home in the morning. My family’ll be there soon, and I meant to leave in a week anyway. I can’t—I can’t watch this anymore.”

“Why’d you watch in the first place?” It might be mean to ask, but Harry’s been wondering that since the beginning. He hadn’t kicked Harry out, in the van that first afternoon, and Harry’s pretty sure Zayn wouldn’t have objected if he had. He hadn’t sabotaged, not really, not until Harry was too deep in to let him do it without a fight.

“He was supposed to get over you.” Louis sounds as tired as Harry feels. “He was supposed to fuck you or whatever and get you out of his system for good. Or, like, I hoped. I don’t know. I’ve been doing a lot of hoping since I met Zayn.”

“He said your break up was mutual.”

“Yeah, well, he thought it was.” The bite in Louis’s retort is only half-hearted. “I’ll figure it out. I can, I just need the space. But you need to too.” He stabs a finger in Harry’s direction, and that’s not half-hearted. “Because the only reason I’m letting him go is because I want him to be happy and he’s happy with you. So figure out a way to love all of him because otherwise I’ll find a way to get him back, I swear.”

“I do!”

Louis snorts. “Uh-huh. Just, make him happy.” He rubs his hand over his face again, then steps down. Harry’s not sure where he’s going, if he’s going to, like, attack Harry or slap him or something for stealing his man—even though he _didn’t_ —so he steps back, but Louis just walks around him. “I hope I don’t see you again,” he says as he walks past. “But I bet I will.”

It’s oddly uplifting, from the person who probably knows Zayn best, because it means Harry hasn’t failed, not really. Hasn’t broken everything. It gives Harry the courage to ask, “Does Zayn know you’re here?”

Louis turns. Standing at the end of the driveway, the lights from the street turn him pale and hollow-looking, like something out of an old noir movie. “No. And don’t you fucking dare tell him. What we have is enough.”

Then he’s gone, too, melting into the shadows like something out of one of Liam’s comics, and a minute later Harry hears the sounds of the van starting up and driving away.

He stands outside for another long minute after that, watching where Louis had disappeared. It’s no surprise Louis’s in love with Zayn. Harry doesn’t think he’d be surprised about anyone being in love with Zayn, least of all Louis. But…

One more thing, he promises himself, and goes upstairs to his room, digging out a sketch and snapping a picture of it. One more thing, then he really will have done everything he could do.

\---

He wakes up the next morning with the sort of pounding headache he normally associates with hangovers. It probably is a hangover, he thinks, as he rolls reluctantly out of bed. An emotional hangover, from having ruined everything that matters in one day. Of course he’d be good at ruining things too.

There’s a long moment as he pulls on jeans and a t-shirt (he doesn’t feel like anything fancy today, can’t even get up the energy for a hat) when he considers just not leaving his room today. Liam would come and cuddle with him if he asked, he knows.

But it’s not in Harry’s nature to avoid things. And he’d probably need to eat sometime, and he can smell bacon, which means his mom is cooking.

At least that’s something he can fix. So he grabs his messenger bag, and heads downstairs.

His mom is in the kitchen, her back to him as she hums over her pan of bacon. It’s what he saw every weekend morning since he can remember, because Gemma usually woke up late and didn’t have breakfast. So mornings were always him and his mom times. Sometimes, in the summer, they would eat out on the porch, look up at the clouds and build castles in the skies.

“Do you want eggs as well?” she asks, and Harry jumps.

“What?”

“I was going to make pancakes, but would you rather eggs?” she repeats, “Or I could make both. I’m in a cooking mood.”

“Um, pancakes are fine?” he edges in. He doesn’t know what to do here. They’ve never really fought before. “But if you want eggs…”

“Then pancakes it is.” She puts her hands on her hips to stare down at the pan, and that’s so familiar a pose too that Harry has to drop his messenger bag, and go over to hook his chin over her shoulder.

“Smells good.”

“It should, there’s enough fat in it for weeks.” She pats him on the heads. “Go get plates.”

“Yes’m.” He gives her a final squeeze before letting go, and it’s almost normal as he gets out plates and knives and syrup and she makes the pancakes. Even if it’s not, because Harry can feel the tension in the air, both of them making such an effort to be normal. Is this what it always felt like to be Gemma? If it is, Harry is very glad he was the golden child.

She puts the stack of pancakes on the table as he sets out the jam, then they both take their seats. It’s silent as they eat, which is weird, because both of them are talkers, even if Harry is more rambling. He’s never managed to be quiet with anyone, really, except sometimes Zayn, but that’s because Zayn’s always been so good at making quiet feel comfortable. But now that’s off the table, so he’s about to start talking about the weather, if nothing else, when his mom rests her fork on the plate.

“You know I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want.”

“I know, I do—”

“I thought being a big city lawyer was your dream, too.” She gives him a look that’s so questioning it’s almost pleading. “You always said it was. And you really seemed to love your internship last summer, and all your classes.”

“I did, I do! They were great, they are great.” Harry pushes his hair out of his face so syrup doesn’t get on it. He should have tied it back. “I do want to be a lawyer, and maybe even in a big city, I don’t know.”

“And I just want what’s best for that, you know that, too? I don’t mean to push, I just want you to get what you want.”

“I know that, too.” He could leave it there, he probably should, but there’s the memory of studying with Zayn, of their notebooks bumping over the bookstore counter. “And I want that, too. So much. But it’s not, like, all I want, either? I mean, I…there are things I didn’t do, because I wanted it? And now I think I don’t want to not do them anymore, you know? Like, this summer, I have been studying, and hanging out with Zayn, and I really can do them both. I want to do them both.”

“That means your essays won’t be as good.”

“Then they aren’t.” Harry runs his hands through his hair again. “And maybe I don’t get into an Ivy, or whatever. But I think I’d be okay with that?”

She sighs, long and loud, and reaches out to put her hand over his. “As long as you’re happy.”

“I could be? I don’t know.” He hates it, the not knowing, but it’s true.

“Okay then. So how was Zayn? Did you figure that out? Your friend came by last night because of it, did he catch you?”

“Yeah. Well, he’s not my friend, he’s Zayn’s friend. Or, ex. Well, both? It’s complicated, they went out but then they broke up but they’re still best friends and Louis’s still in love with him and he claims that I’m the reason Zayn never loved him but Zayn never said anything about that, though I guess he wouldn’t—”

“Harry.”

“No.” She squeezes his hand, and he manages a smile in thanks. “Like, I think I messed it up even more. I don’t know how to fix it. Liam says maybe I can’t, but I don’t know how to do that, either.”

“Then you’ll get over it.” When he looks at her, her face is bleak and far-away. He almost wonders how much this sort of heartbreak runs in the family. If this was what she was warning him about. But he can’t—he’s not that person. He’ll get out, he’ll burn right out of here, but he can’t find it in him to stop hoping.

“Thanks for breakfast, mum.” He shoves his chair back, and his hand slides out from under hers. As he clears his plate, he stops to drop a kiss on her cheek. “I’m going to go study now.”

“Have fun.” Her smiles breaks through the stormclouds. Like always, it can’t help but make Harry feel better. “See any cute guys my age, send them over! Seems like I need to do some catching up.”

“I do think I need a male influence in my life to keep me straight,” Harry teases, and ambles out of the room with her laughter on his heels.

\---

For the next week, Harry goes about his normal life. He works on his essays, and studies a bit for the LSATs when it isn’t too painful. He hangs out with his mom, with Liam, with all the other friends he’s sort of been neglecting this summer. He lazes by the pool, goes to some parties. Niall’s there, a lot, and nods and grins at Harry, but Harry hasn’t seen Zayn or Louis since Louis said he’d left, and Niall doesn’t talk to him.

He only spends every other minute wondering if he should go find Zayn.

But he doesn’t. Because Liam was right. He can’t—there’s nothing he can do. And he hates it, hates being so helpless, but it’s true. Zayn’s always been the one to mess up his plans.

So he lazes and reads and listens to music and bakes in the sun and sometimes wanks off to the memory of those moments in the car, and that’s that. It’s almost enough.

Until he gets a text.

“Why here?” he asks as his greeting, when he gets out of his car. Zayn’s looking away from him, through the fence to the football field, with the high school behind in all his faded brick glory. He’s wearing a simple t-shirt and old, comfortable-looking jeans, and his hair is down, from what Harry can see of it from the streetlights. The school’s barely lit, of course, though there are a few emergency lights on in the field. It casts him in shadows, like an old James Dean poster, except Zayn’d never pull off James dean. The image would be ruined the first time he smiled.

Zayn turns around, when he sees him, and despite everything Harry has that same feeling, of everything going light. He’s so fucking gorgeous.

“Thought it was fitting,” Zayn says. Harry still can’t read the look on his face, the way his smile twists wryly, but he doesn’t think it’s bad. He doesn’t see how it could get worse, anyway. “Come on.”

“Come where? The school’s closed.”

The lights reflect off the whites of Zayn’s eyes as he rolls them. “You really never did anything fun in school, did you?” he reaches down to throw a bag over the fence, then grabs the chains and pulls himself up until he’s straddling the top.

Harry gapes. And ignores the burst of heat at how easily Zayn wore his strength. “Won’t we get in trouble?”

“No alarms on the fields, not during the summer. And anyway, what can they do? Won’t arrest their golden boy.” He thinks he sees Zayn grin, and when Zayn reaches down a hand Harry takes it, lets Zayn help him over the fence. He’s never done anything like this before. If he gets arrested, that could mess everything up. He’s over eighteen, that goes on his record, that could—

“Trust me, I’ve done this a lot,” Zayn says, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. “Lots of good memories on this field,” he adds, and jumps down on the other side, light as a cat.

Harry follows him, landing on his feet, if not gracefully. “Good memories?”

Another grin, clearer here from the lights at the back of the school. “Field was only yours when it was light out, Styles. Had my first blow job here.”

Harry can’t help his squawk. “With who?” he demands. Why are they here? This is a stupid place to be here.

“Kevin O’Shea,” Zayn answers easily, leading him farther towards the school. “Don’t know if you knew him, he was a year older than us, I was in a lot of his art classes—”

“I remember,” Harry snaps. He has a vague memory of a dark-skinned boy with a cheerful smile, a little chubby. He doesn’t like it. “He wasn’t very hot.”

Zayn laughs again, and drops the bag in a place he clearly knows. He bends down to rummage in it, then pulls out a blanket. “Well, I wasn’t exactly spoiled for choices, was I?” He spreads the blanket out between them, a roll of what he thinks is a plaid green as the grass.

“Yeah.” They’d been doing a good job avoiding the issue, but it’s hard not to hear that as an accusation. “Zayn—”

“No,” Zayn cuts him off, as he sits down on the blanket, his legs bent at the knees and spread a little, so he can grab at his knees. Harry follows him down, stretching out his own legs. “You’ve been doing a lot of the talking for, like this whole summer. Let me, okay? ‘cause, like, I’ve been thinking a lot since we talked, and since you sent me that picture, and I needed to do it, I think.”

Harry thinks of the image he had sent, the picture the Art for Everyone guy had sent him, but with the comic book image layered over the sketch, and ‘ _you didn’t need to make 2._ ’ He hopes Zayn figured it out, what he hadn’t really known how to say. What it seemed like he never knew how to say, with Zayn.

“It’s just…” Zayn trails off, in a way Harry thinks means he’s putting his thoughts together. Sure enough, a moment later, “Like, in high school, I really was in love with you. Or I felt like I was. You were just so, like—you were the golden boy, you know? Everyone loved you. And then we got partnered, and you were sweet and nice and funny and so fucking hot, and I thought—I mean, I hadn’t really had any hope before, but I thought I saw you looking sometimes, and I took a chance.”

He sighs. Harry stays quiet. This is Zayn’s time now. This is the things he can’t fix for him. This is Zayn, fixing himself. He’s still not looking at Harry, though, staring up at the stars speckling the sky, really visible here where there aren’t many lights, not like in the city where you can’t really see them. “I never really expected it to go anywhere, so I really wasn’t crushed when you said no. Like, I knew what you were, and what I was, and I didn’t—it was a chance. I just thought I’d regret it if I didn’t take it. And I would have.”

Now he turns, spinning so he’s facing Harry. He looks almost young, but he doesn’t look like he did when he was sixteen. “But here’s the thing, Harry. I’m still me, and you’re still you. Like, I’m not blind, I know I got hotter, and I’m not quite as awkward, but you were right. I still am the geeky, awkward kid I was in high school. And you’re still…you. You’re still sweet and nice and funny and so fucking hot.” He waves a hand at Harry. “And this time, after this summer, it’s not just a chance. We’re not sixteen anymore. It’s not just—like, infatuation, or whatever. This time, it really would crush me. So, like, that’s why. Why I’ve been…weird.”

It doesn’t feel like the end, but he pauses, and the silence stretches on enough that Harry has to ask, “Can I talk now?”

“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to, like silence you.”

“Okay.” Harry takes a deep breath. He can see, now, why Zayn didn’t look at him. It’s easier to say these things to the sky, and just hear Zayn’s breathing to know he’s there. He inches his hand over, though, so their pinkies are barely an inch apart. He wants to feel that. Needs to. “I didn’t lie, in the bookstore. I was in love with you when I was sixteen, I think. Like you said, sixteen, so I don’t know, but it wasn’t—saying no wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t because you weren’t hot enough, or cool enough, or anything. No,” he cuts himself off, before Zayn did. He’s never needed to put up a front for Zayn. “It sort of was, that’s not true. But not how you think. I didn’t say no because I didn’t want you. I did. I really, really did. But…I had a plan, you know? And coming out could have messed it up.” He sighs, too. “I wasn’t ready, then, and I don’t think that was a bad thing on my part. I’m sorry it hurt you, and that it’s fucking everything up now, but I couldn’t have done high school out, I think. It would have messed everything up.”

“I don’t blame you for that,” Zayn says, quietly. Harry nods his thanks, but he still doesn’t look at Zayn.

“I know. But, this, now—it’s not because you got hot. I know you’re the same, underneath. It’s not—I didn’t start this because you changed. Not really. Or,” he interrupts himself again. He needs to be honest here. “I did, because you were hot and I was a little drunk and you had always been a question mark, but I didn’t keep on with it because of that. I kept on with it because I’ve changed. Because I’m not sixteen and scared anymore.”

He can’t help looking over now. Zayn’s gazing at him with big, vulnerable eyes, and his mouth is hanging open a little in a way Harry really just wants to kiss. “I’m not, Zayn,” he repeats, with as much belief behind it as he can. “I love you. I love all of you, and I’m not scared.”

“Then why’d you say that stuff to Jenna,” Zayn says, and bites on his lip as soon as it gets out. Somehow, their hands are closer, so they overlap, Harry’s on top of Zayn’s.

“Because you are the same. And that’s great, ‘cause I might not get that part but I love how excited about it and everything you get.” Harry shrugs, and tries for a cheeky smile. He thinks he succeeds pretty well. “And I didn’t want you to have to hear what I knew she’d say to you, because I knew she was nasty in high school. And I wanted to get rid of her because you were smiling at the dog owner and I was annoyed.”

It gets a laugh. “He was like forty, Harry.”

“So? He had a dog. Louis said dogs are your kryptonite.” Harry’s grin is real, now, because Zayn’s smiling too, small and fond. “I could get a dog.”

“Don’t need one.” It makes everything in Harry glow, like that’s the real confession. That, and the way Zayn smiles at him, eyes crinkling, taking up half his face, joking. “You’re hot enough without one.”

“Am I?” Harry asks in his best seductive voice, and he can’t—their hands touching isn’t enough, anymore. He needs more, and Zayn’s been sitting like a fucking invitation so who is he not to follow it, not to crawl over between his legs? Zayn lets him come, lets him push him down until Zayn’s on his back on the blankets and Harry’s spread out over him again, propping himself up with a hand on either side of his head. He pauses there, for a second, just looking down at Zayn, feeling how happy he is.

Then he lowers himself down, so he can whispers in Zayn’s ear. “Should warn you, I’m a cat person.”

Zayn grabs his face with both hands, brings him back up over him. “I like both,” he says, and kisses Harry.

It’s like fireworks for real, like a thousand of them exploding, that kiss. Better than any other kiss Harry’s had, even with Zayn, better than everything, the way Zayn holds onto his face and kisses him slowly and thoroughly, taking his time exploring his mouth with his tongue like they have all the time in the world. Like he finally agrees this is how it should be between them, romantic and beautiful and slow. Like he’s planning for forever too.

He lets go of Harry’s face to get his fingers on the buttons of his shirt, undoing them with fumbling fingers without ever breaking the kiss, and they only pause long enough for Harry to sit up and pull his shirt off before they’re back to that leisurely, deep exploration that’s starting a burning in Harry’s stomach that is only growing. He needs more of Zayn’s skin, he realizes, he needs that more than anything, and pulls off of Zayn again. Zayn makes a discontented sound for a second, then stops when Harry pulls at his t-shirt, lifting himself up so Harry can get it off.

His breath catches when it is off, when Zayn is shirtless beneath him. God, he’s wanted this for months, and if Zayn looked good in sunlight Harry thinks this is what he was made for, for the dark shadows, for his whole body to be a chiaroscuro painting of golden skin and dark ink against the dark green of the blanket.

And he can touch, now, can do what he’s been wanting, so he scoots back to do just that. He drags his tongue over the lettering on Zayn’s collarbone, feels Zayn groan vibrate through him, then goes on, tracing each tattoo with his tongue. Zayn’s hand are on his shoulders, his back, digging into the muscle whenever Harry changes his licks to a nip, or when he finds Zayn’s nipples somewhere in the middle and works on those, licking around them, until Harry finishes at his belly button and then there’s just the trail of dark hair down beneath his jeans.

“Off,” Harry mutters, and Zayn laughs even as Harry palms him through his jeans and he arches up.

“Only if you do too,” he retorts, and that’s no hardship, except for how Harry has to stop touching him as he shimmies his jeans and boxers off while trying to watch Zayn do the same. He’s—God, Harry’s seen a lot of him over the summer, seen him shirtless, just in his swim shorts, seen him writhing beneath him desperate for it, but the sight of all him still hits him like a battering ram. He wants to touch, the skinny legs and narrow hips and the cock jutting out from them, dark and veined and hard.

It’s Zayn who talks first, though, propped up on his elbows and looking at Harry with wide eyes and a smile that’s more than a little predatory in a way that makes Harry want to preen. “Fuck, Harry,” he says, his voice a raw rasp. “Get the fuck over here.”

Harry doesn’t need telling twice, and then he’s on top of Zayn again, starting from where he left off and tracing the trail of hair down, until he detours to nip at Zayn’s thighs. “Fucking hell, Harry,” Zayn moans, and Harry hides his grin in his skin.

“Think I can do better than Kevin O’Shea?” he asks, and laughs when Zayn twitches.

“Think you could hardly do worse,” Zayn replies, shortly, “Unless you don’t—”

Harry cuts him off by kissing the head, and then swallows him down. “Shit,” Zayn mutters, and then Harry manages to get him quiet completely, swirling his tongue over the thick veins. Somehow, Zayn’s hands have found their way into his hair, not holding him down just tightening whenever Harry does something good and it’s brilliant, brilliant enough that if Harry wasn’t holding his hips down with one hand and had the other wrapped around the base of Zayn’s cock, jerking slowly to the same rhythm as he moves his tongue, he could get off now, to the feel of Zayn filling his mouth. “Fucking, fuck, Harry, hell,” Zayn lets out a constant stream of words, as he starts panting and Harry can feel him getting more desperate. The thought that he’s loud here, that Harry can get him loud, makes Harry hum around Zayn’s dick, and the vibrations have Zayn pressing desperately into Harry’s hand.

“Fuck, Harry, I’m close,” he finally gets out, so Harry hollows out his cheeks and sucks hard, and Zayn comes gasping his name with his hands fisted in Harry’s hair hard enough to hurt.

Harry swallows him down, coaxes a little more out of him with gentle licks, then feels him fall back, and he pulls off with a wet sound and a grin. “Better than last time?” he asks, bright as he feels, and Zayn chuckles lazily as he tugs Harry up by the hair.

“Much,” he agrees, and kisses the taste of him out of Harry’s mouth. Harry reaches down to his own achingly hard cock, but Zayn beats him there, somehow. It’s as good as last time, better, because he’s thrusting not only into Zayn’s hand but also the skin of his thigh and he can bite at Zayn’s neck and Zayn’s muttering encouragements at him, endearments he doesn’t take to heart but thinks maybe he could, so it doesn’t take much time until he’s coming too, burying the sounds in Zayn’s shoulder.

This time it’s him who falls on Zayn. He feels useless, even from just this. He can’t imagine what it’ll be like after they’ve fucked. He really, really wants to know.

“Hey, babe.” Zayn’s hand strokes down his back, and Harry can’t help his contented purr. Zayn laughs. “Love you, but this is gross and I can’t breathe.”

Harry manages to flop himself over so he’s lying next to Zayn, and so that he can watch as Zayn uses his t-shirt to clean them off, gentle and careful. His skin is prickling with goosebumps from the night air. They should probably warm each other up, soon.

“Do you?” he asks, once he’s got enough mind back to talk.

“Hm?” Zayn throws the t-shirt somewhere, then lies back down, pulling Harry closer. Harry goes easily, resting his head on Zayn’s shoulder.

“Do you?” he asks. “Love me.”

Zayn’s hand is in his hair, and it’s so soothing Harry thinks he could fall asleep like this, cuddled into Zayn, if they didn’t have to leave before daylight and were also a bit in danger of being arrested.

“Harry,” Zayn says, somewhere between fond and exasperated, “Didn’t you hear my whole speech?”

“You said you loved me,” Harry objects. “You never said it in present tense.”

“Oh.” Zayn’s hand runs over his hair, once, and Harry has half a second to worry before, “I love you. You’ve always been—like, the one who got away, or, what did you say, the question mark. You’ve always been my question mark.”

Harry smiles, and nuzzles into Zayn’s chest. “Would you have fallen in love with Louis, if I hadn’t been there?” he asks. It’s not—he isn’t stealing, he knows, but—

“What?” Zayn’s hand stills on his head in surprise, then resumes. “I mean, maybe? I can’t know, but—no. I don’t think so. That’s not why we ended. Why?”

“No reason.” It makes Harry feel better, though. He lifts up his head, so he can look at Zayn. Zayn’s smiling at him, that shy, fond smile, the one that Harry’s always loved, always wanted to keep for himself. “Where do we go from here?”

Zayn laughs, and there’s the starlight in it, just like the sky above him. He thinks he’ll tell Zayn that, sometime, about the starlight. He won’t laugh, even though Harry’s never been a poet. Or he’ll love him anyway. “You kiss me again,” he says, and, yes, that that’s a good plan.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thanks for sticking around this long; I hope you enjoyed!

Harry knocks on the door of Zayn’s dorm loudly, because Zayn hasn’t been answering his phone, of course, which probably means he’s asleep. Harry’s going to be a little mad if he is, because this is a big night and he doesn’t want to be late, which they will be if Zayn still has to get ready.

Louis pulls the door open. “Hey,” he says, when he sees Harry, and steps aside so he can come into the common room. “Zayn!” he yells, over his shoulder. “Your date’s here, hurry the fuck up!”

“I’ll be out in a sec!” Zayn yells back from his room, and Louis rolls his eyes at Harry as throws himself back down on the couch next to Niall, and grabs a game controller.

“You’re going down, you fucker,” Niall says to Louis, then goes on conversationally, “Congrats, by the way.”

“What? Oh yeah. Thanks.” Harry grins at them. He’s still bouncing from it, from the email that told him yes and had made him scream loud enough half the people on the floor had looked in to make sure he hadn’t, like, had a heart attack. Then the phone call with his mom, where she had screamed just as loudly.

“Columbia law’s pretty awesome,” Louis adds, then, “Fuck! Niall, that’s—fuck!”

“Should have watched your back,” Niall retorts with a laugh. Harry’s gotten used to these sorts of conversations, so he just replies,

“I know! It was my first choice, it was exactly where I wanted to be.”

“And Zayn’s got that offer in New York,” Louis says. He doesn’t make any comments about Niall cutting him off again, so Harry knows he’s serious.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, about apartments for two and a cat, with lots of shelves for Zayn’s books and Harry’s music, because he hasn’t talked about it with Zayn yet, but it makes him smile every time he thinks of it. Everything he loves. Everything he wants. “He’d have to be the breadwinner for a while.”

“Don’t think I’ll be making much as an assistant,” Zayn inserts. Harry turns to look at him, still smiling, thinking of waking up next to him every day. He wonders, vaguely, if he’s ever going to get used to Zayn. He hopes not, but if he will he hasn’t yet, when Zayn’s all in black from his slacks to his button down and looks sharp and dangerous and model-hot in it. But his smile is all Zayn, and so is the way he leans into Harry, his hand settling onto Harry’s hip like it was made to be there.

“Be making more than a student,” Louis counters. He glances up at Zayn, takes him in, and swallows. “Looking good, Zaynie.”

“Thanks babe.” Zayn leans over and kisses him on the head. Louis barely twitches, but Harry still gives him an apologetic look. Louis shrugs. He’s been doing better, he claims, in the talks they sometimes have in the in-between times when Zayn’s getting ready or something. It’s at least seemed like he’s started hating Harry less. Harry has hopes that by the end of the year he won’t even make fun of him constantly, but he’s also seen how he interacts with his friends so he’s not sure that isn’t a sign of affection.

But right now, Harry doesn’t want to share Zayn. So he wraps his arm around Zayn’s waist. “We should go,” he mutters, and Zayn rolls his eyes.

“I know we’ve plenty of time to get to the restaurant,” he retorts. “I’m barely late.”

“Yeah, but it’s my celebration dinner, so I get to say when we get there, and we get there early. Anyway, Nick wanted to talk to you about that book you gave him? The one with the long pretentious title?”

“Oh right, sure.” Zayn laughs, and tugs on Harry’s hair. “See you guys,” he adds, turning to grab a jacket off a chair.

“Be good!” Louis calls after them. “I expect him back in one piece, Harold!”

“And if you fuck do it at yours, I don’t want to hear it!” Niall adds, and so Harry and Zayn are laughing as they leave the dorm.

“Hey.” Zayn stops him once they get outside with a hand on his arm. It’s chilly out, spring not quite having got the memo it wasn’t winter anymore, and Harry would like to get into the car because his sweater was more chosen for fashion than warmth. “Never did get to say congratulations. I’m proud of you.”

“You can show me how proud later,” Harry suggests, and Zayn grins.

“Oh I will. But really,” he adds, glancing down at his hands as Harry starts a list of things he might be able to get Zayn to do tonight in the name of pride, “This is what you’ve always wanted, and I’m glad you got it. Still the golden boy.”

Harry grabs Zayn’s chin, lifts it up so he’s looking at him. The crisp air’s made the night clearer, and there’s moonlight filtering through the streetlamps. “Always am,” he agrees, “Haven’t I told you? My plans always work out.”

“Always?” Zayn teases.

“Got you, didn’t I?”

“Thought I always messed up your plans.”

“Well, yeah,” Harry admits. Zayn always does. “But you’re better.”

Then Zayn’s kissing him silent, with his hands on his face and a smile on his lips and starlight all around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Want to yell at me about it? Come say hi on [ tumblr!](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/) Comments are love.  
> 


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